My Mother's Silence (ARC)

by Lauren Westwood

  His pencil has paused. I realise that what I’m thinking is probably showing on my face. That his muse will have no secrets from him. Slowly, I run my hands over my breasts, as if they are his hands. I move them lower, over my stomach. Lower. He stops all pretence of drawing. I can sense his arousal. He stands up and comes towards me. He kneels down… he’s going to make it happen…

  Just then, there’s a loud jangling. A phone. His face hardens like a shell. For the first time since we began this little escapade, I wish I had a blanket or something to put over me.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ he whispers under his breath. He stands up, and leaves the room. Maybe I’ll finally get a cup of tea, because it seems that for today, at least, we’re done.

  ‘Yes,’ he says tersely into the phone.

  I can’t hear the voice on the other end.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he says. ‘I sent them off yesterday. You should have them by three p.m.’

  A long pause.

  ‘Well you shouldn’t have scheduled the meeting with the lawyers so early.’

  The tension rises in his voice and in the room. I begin to feel uncomfortable like I’m intruding. I go over to the sofa and put my clothes back on. I’m tempted – so tempted – to go over and look at what he’s sketched. But it feels wrong to do so.

  ‘Look, Liz, I’m sorry. I’ve done my best. You’ll just have to wait there.’

  Another long pause.

  ‘Yeah, you too.’

  He slams down the phone. His back is to me, his shoulders slumped. When he turns and sees me dressed, he sighs. ‘Sorry,’ he says.

  ‘Is everything… OK?’ I say. The question sounds ridiculous.

  ‘Yes, fine.’ He winces. ‘My ex-wife is handling the sale of our house. They’re exchanging today, and the document I signed hasn’t arrived yet. It’s probably the snow. I hope the courier gets through.’ He frowns down at his hands as if he doesn’t recognise them.

  And I don’t recognise him either. His cool, coiled restraint is gone, but not from giving in to the desire between us. In its place is an empty shell left by a broken relationship, the love shrivelled up and died.

  I go over to him. He probably won’t confide in me, but at least I can make him a cup of tea.

  ‘How long since you split?’ I ask. He sits down at the table and puts his head in his hands. I fill the kettle with water and put it on.

  He gives an empty laugh. ‘Three years. Forever, you could say. Most of the time it feels like that. But each time I hear her voice, I just… remember.’

  I swallow hard. So that’s it. He has an ex-wife that he’s still in love with. Even a muse can’t compete with that.

  I put a teabag into a mug. ‘It can be hard to let go of the good times,’ I say. I mean it to be comforting, but it comes out sounding trite.

  ‘No.’ He looks up, like he’s just remembered that I’m here. ‘Not the good times. It’s just…’ He breaks off. ‘Sorry, you didn’t come here to be bothered with my shit.’

  The kettle switches off and I pour water into his mug.

  ‘Tell me.’ I set the mug on the table. ‘God knows, I’ve told you everything.’

  He shakes his head. I feel that it’s important that he confides in me, and whether he does or not will determine how things lie between us. Just when I’m certain that he’s not going to, he speaks.

  ‘Liz was with me in the police. We worked in the same office, but in different divisions. We dated for two years and then got married. Our schedules were such that we didn’t see a lot of each other, but that kind of worked. She was ambitious, and I was ambitious. I got promoted. She didn’t.’

  I nod.

  ‘That was the first strain on our relationship, but there were others. We both wanted kids, but it wasn’t happening. Then four years ago, it finally did. She got pregnant. I was over the moon. I thought that having a baby would solve everything, plaster over the cracks in the relationship.’

  Is that what Ginny thought too? That keeping the baby would plaster over the cracks, or in her case, cement her relationship with James. Or Byron? I sit rigid, wishing I’d made myself a cuppa too. As if he’s reading my mind, he gets up and puts the kettle on again.

  ‘So who knows if we would have survived in the end? She was working on an operation involving a gang of traffickers. I pressured her to take a desk job, take it easy. She resented it and didn’t want to derail her career.’

  The kettle boils, and he drops a teabag haphazardly into a cup. ‘We had a row in front of everyone, and it was all very unprofessional. I learned later that she hadn’t bothered to tell her boss about the pregnancy.’

  He slams the mug down in front of me. ‘To make a long story short, Liz continued on with the operation. She went to investigate a tip off and ended up getting shot. She… lost the baby.’

  I grip the mug so tightly that the heat stings my hand.

  ‘So that was it – for my marriage and my career.’ He shrugs. ‘I walked out pretty much then and there. I guess I was a bastard not to have been more supportive. But I was just so angry. And three weeks later, she was back at work. She finally got that promotion.’

  The agony on his face tears me in two. I reach out and take his hand. I don’t say ‘sorry’ or any other meaningless words of comfort. Because when it comes to a deep, heart-wrenching loss like he’s suffered, there are no words to be said.

  In only a few seconds, the hard shell of Nicholas Hamilton begins to crack. His eyes fill with tears. I grip his hand more tightly and look away so he can be unashamed in his grief. For the loss of his baby, another innocent life.

  ‘Nick,’ I whisper softly. I trace the line of a tear down his cheek.

  ‘Sorry.’ He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you …’ He stops speaking. His eyes say it all. ‘Yes, I do…’

  He pulls me gently onto his lap. He studies my face and I know he’s seeing straight through me. He kisses me, with such a tender sweetness, and I curl up onto his lap as the warmth flares to heat between us, and tangle my fingers in his hair pulling him harder to my mouth. I gasp as he reaches up under my shirt and his hand caresses my breast. I want him, all of him. I want to give him all of myself. There’s no past and no pain, nothing but the promise of the moment. His hands move to undo my jeans and I’m about to take my shirt over my head… The dog barks from the utility room, and there’s a crunch of gravel outside. Nick groans and closes his eyes, severing the connection between us.

  ‘Talk about bad timing,’ he says.

  I slide off his lap, straightening my clothes. ‘That’s for sure. Are you expecting someone?’

  Nick stands up from the chair and puts the kettle back on. This time, I know it’s not for me.

  ‘My mate from Fort William,’ he says. ‘I called him late last night. He’s brought me your sister’s file.’

  36

  The snow has turned to rain as I make my way back home. I feel like a horse that’s run a race and is still in a lather. The alternative reality takes shape in my head. Lying by the fire with Nick, my hair splayed out on the rug. Rising above the pain of the past and stealing a moment, a future, even. And later on, when he finished what he started, he would show me the sketches: beautiful and skilful, but somehow unfinished. Only by making love to me would he truly be able to know the woman on the page.

  Before I left Skybird, Nick’s mate had come inside and they’d given each other a blokey, back-clapping embrace, complete with a few choice swear words on how long it had been since they’d last caught up. Nick had introduced us briefly. DS Alain Paterson’s eyebrows had lifted when Nick gave my name.

  ‘I was just leaving,’ I’d said, trying not to look at the thick file in his hand. I was in that file. So were all of my friends and the people I’d grown up with. And Mum. And my sister. What was Nick going to find when he started reading? Part of me had wanted to stick around. Observe him as he read witness accounts and officer reports. Take note of any reaction, exc
lamation of surprise, or frown at an unanswered question.

  Instead, I’d tried to look grateful and non-plussed. ‘It’s very kind of you both to help me out,’ I’d said. And then I’d left. It was better for all concerned. Let Nick catch up with his friend. Let him go through the file and draw his own conclusions.

  He’d given me a brief kiss on the cheek as I left. That kiss had said it all, but it was something that I’d known already. That as long as Nick has that file, as long as he’s looking into my sister’s death, then anything between us will need to be put on hold.

  I feel an ache of regret as I go back through the gate to Mum’s yard. At the side of the lawn, there’s a small, misshapen attempt at a snowman. I remove my boots by the porch and go inside. The twins are wrestling on the floor of the living room, and Fiona is shouting at them to settle down. Emily is picking up some pieces of the jigsaw that must have been knocked off the table in the melee. Mum and Bill are in the kitchen.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Emily asks me, straightening up. A bracelet jangles on her wrist.

  My mouth opens, but I can’t answer. The breath leaves my body, my head pounding like it might explode. I run forward and grab her wrist.

  ‘Ouch,’ she says.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ I hiss. I run my fingers over the smoothed edges of the glass and the tiny iridescent seashells. The golden heart charm. The bracelet I made for my sister. That she was wearing the night she died.

  Emily’s eyes grow wide with fright like they did the night Mum had her outburst. My hands are shaking hard as I try to unknot the cord.

  ‘Here.’ Emily does it for me. ‘Take it. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Skye? What’s going on?’ Fiona comes up, clearly concerned that I’m giving Emily a hard time.

  ‘Where did you get it?’ I shout at Emily, ignoring Fiona. I take the bracelet, feeling the weight of it in my hands. The weight of all my hopes and dreams when I made it for my sister. All the love I’d felt for her, sealing our unbreakable bond.

  I’m half aware of Bill coming to the door of the kitchen, along with Mum, teetering on her cane.

  ‘I… found it,’ Emily says. ‘In the jewellery box in your mum’s room.’ Her eyes fill with tears. ‘I know I shouldn’t have taken it, but it was just so pretty, and—’

  ‘Emily, you didn’t!’ Fiona looks shocked, but she clearly doesn’t know the significance of it.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Emily sobs.

  I feel like shaking her.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ I turn on Mum, my voice raised.

  ‘Hey, calm down.’ Bill steps forward between us. ‘Don’t upset her.’

  ‘Mum…’ I say, ignoring him, ‘where did you get this?’

  ‘I…’ Mum’s voice shakes, ‘don’t know. Exactly.’

  ‘I know where she got it.’ Bill’s voice is tense and icy. ‘It was found under the passenger seat when the police examined the car.’

  ‘The car? What car?’

  ‘The car you crashed,’ Bill shouts. ‘It was in the things they returned. Your coat, rucksack, water bottle. All the old rubbish from under the seat. Some stuff of Ginny’s. I don’t know what all of it was. Not that you were around to help take care of the logistics – they couldn’t even find the damn car keys after the fact. But the car was sold anyway. Dismantled for parts. I put most of the stuff in the attic. Mum wanted to keep the bracelet.’

  ‘But how did it get in the car?’

  ‘I have no idea.’ Bill steps forward getting in my face. ‘She probably lost it under the seat days before she died. Who knows? What does it matter?’

  ‘No…’ I shake my head. ‘She was wearing it that night.’

  ‘I thought you don’t remember anything about that night,’ Bill throws back at me.

  ‘No…’ My head is still pounding. I feel like screaming. ‘Is the stuff still up in the attic?

  ‘I’ve no idea…’

  ‘Nan…?’ Emily speaks. ‘Are you…?’

  Emily moves in a blur over to Mum. Bill moves. I move. But all of us are too late. The cane judders, and then gives way. Mum collapses on the floor.

  There are going to be consequences, recriminations. That much I know, even as events blur together. Bill makes the calls: the paramedics, Lorna… The rest of us tend to Mum. Fiona, Emily and I help to uncrumple her, and cover her with a blanket. She’s out for a few minutes, but then, unexpectedly, she opens her eyes.

  ‘What happened?’ she asks.

  Fiona explains that she collapsed. ‘We’ve called the paramedics,’ she says.

  ‘No… I don’t need them.’ Mum struggles and manages to sit up. ‘I’ll be… fine. I must have fainted.’

  ‘That may be,’ Bill says. ‘But you have to be examined.’

  ‘I’d really rather you didn’t make a fuss,’ Mum says. ‘A cup of tea, and I’ll be fine.’

  Bill glares at me. ‘You need to lie on the sofa,’ he says to Mum, taking her arm.

  She tries to shrug him off, but she’s too weak. Fiona takes her other arm. ‘Really, Mary, Bill’s right.’

  When Mum’s settled on the sofa, Bill takes me aside, his eyes ablaze. ‘This is your fault,’ he says. ‘I told you not to upset her.’

  ‘Don’t lay this on me,’ I hiss. ‘You’ve got plenty to answer for. You should have told me about the things that got returned from the car. I’m surprised you didn’t let Emily get them down from the attic and go through them.’

  ‘Go to hell,’ he says.

  ‘Fine.’ I storm out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

  Tears sting in my eyes as I brave the shower of dust and climb back up into the attic. I manage to avoid the beam, but still I want to scream and kick at everything. I want to throw all the boxes down, get rid of everything. Run away, start over, my life a blank canvas.

  I find the box over near the old microphone stands. A box without a label, the top not taped shut. Inside, there are several clear plastic bags with police labels. Ginny’s jumper found that night, and her scarf. I take them out of the bag and cry, holding them to my face. They smell like nothing, and the wool feels rough and sharp against my skin. Then I look through the other things in the box. There are a few books, a packet of guitar strings, a water bottle, a first aid kit, a small bag of coins, a long-desiccated lip gloss… Nothing. There’s nothing here. I throw everything back in and shove the box into a far corner. Nothing to explain how the bracelet got back to us, when she was wearing it on the night she died, and her body wasn’t recovered.

  I’m still crying as I make my way back down to the hallway and close up the hatch. The door to my room is open. I can hear someone moving about inside.

  ‘Emily?’ I say.

  She slumps on the floor leaning against Ginny’s bed. She looks so young, so beautiful and full of life – so like my sister was. Her anguish tears at my heart.

  ‘Do you hate me?’ she says, looking up.

  ‘Oh, Emily.’ I close the door and go to her. I sit down beside her and hug her, feeling her solid, living warmth. ‘I don’t hate you. And I’m sorry for… everything. This must be so terrible for you.’

  ‘No. I mean, yeah, it kind of is. But it’s worse for you.’

  ‘I’m a grown-up,’ I say. ‘Sort of.’ I take out the bracelet and hand it to Emily. ‘Here,’ I say. ‘You have it. I made it for Ginny. I gave it to her for her eighteenth birthday, along with a pair of hoop earrings that I put little shells on. I loved her so much…’

  ‘No,’ Emily says. She hands the bracelet back to me. ‘I don’t want it.’

  ‘OK.’ Her rejection feels like a painful sting.

  ‘Your sister… she… well… I found something else in the box of vinyl records.’

  ‘What?’ I say warily.

  ‘Another journal. I think it’s… the last one she wrote.’

  I get slowly to my feet. ‘Show me,’ I say.

  37

  It’s all there. The words written down in the little book hidde
n away for all these years. I thank Emily for finding it, apologise for shouting at her, and take it to my room to read alone. The silver-tongued betrayal is written down in green biro, Ginny’s favourite colour. I sit down on the bed and turn directly to the last entry. Three pages of solid writing, dated the afternoon of the day she died:

  A few more weeks and she’ll be gone. I can keep the secret until then. I’m glad I didn’t go to Glasgow and do something that I would regret forever. Mum says that all life is precious and that she’ll stick by me no matter what. She cried when I told her, begged me to think about it one more time. She said that if I made that choice in the end, she would go with me and I didn’t have to stay with James’s rotten old aunt Ellen. She’s so clueless. Of course Ellen isn’t James’s aunt at all, just like James isn’t the father. I’ll tell her someday, when S is gone. I can’t wait…

  I wonder what it will feel like to finally be free of her. Free to live my own dreams. Free to stay, free to love the person I want. The person she didn’t love enough. Only a few more weeks. And then it’s goodbye and good luck…

  I read in stony silence, the words pooling over me, not really sinking in. There’s a buzzing sound in my ear, and a deep, stabbing pain in my abdomen.

  It’s strange, but this little life growing inside of me is like the twin I always wanted and never had. The one who will love me for myself, the real me. S loves the person she wants me to be, not who I really am.

  ‘Bullshit,’ I say in a loud, angry voice. ‘That is utter and complete bullshit.’ My mouth floods with saliva.

  Someday she’ll understand, and someday, I hope she’ll forgive me. I love her so much.

  That’s the last entry. I slam the book shut and run down the hall to the bathroom. I get down on my knees, lean over the toilet, and am thoroughly, desperately sick.

  Fiona finds me there, curled up in a ball on the floor. She shuts the door, cradles my head, and I try to gasp out everything. It’s garbled and incomprehensible even to me, but she seems unsurprised, or at least, unalarmed by the whole thing.