Hold My Hand (23 page)

She feels herself flush again. I must learn to spot when someone's shitting me. I seem to have lost my sense of humour over the years. “Oh, sorry.”

“How's she settling in, at home?”

“Fine, I think. She seems pretty happy.”

“Well, she's a delight at school. We were all expecting some gun-toting, gum-chewing inner-city gangsta, but she's fitted right in, made friends, picked up the work. Does she talk much about it at home?”

“Oh, she loves it. She's having a lovely time. Won't stop going on about it.”

“Great. Great. And who's she friends with? I can never tell, from the playground. Half the time you think they're fighting and they're actually rehearsing a dance routine.”

“Quite a few.” She racks her brain for names. “Chloe Teagle, obviously, and Jago Carlyon.”

“Nice kids.”

“And there are a couple I haven't met yet. Carla Tremayne?”

“Oh yes. Blonde ringlets and proud of it. Parents have a pottery shop in Helstone.”

“Okay. I think I've seen her. And there's one called Lily. She goes on about her a lot.”

“Lily?”

“Mmm.”

“No. Can't think. Are you sure she doesn't mean Lulu? Louise Strang?”

“No. Well, I'm pretty sure. She's not one of those kids who muddle names up.”

“How bizarre. I really can't think. It must be a child who doesn't go to the school. But I can't think of anyone called that at all around here.”

“Funny. She said she lived here.”

“I must be slipping,” says Mrs Parsons. “I thought I knew everyone in north Cornwall. Oh well. There you go. Looks like Mrs Varco's free, now. Do you want me to take you over?”

Chapter Thirty-five

The valley is pitch black. She can only make the house out by the headlights.

She drives slowly down, parks up and, glad she's had the sense to put an emergency kit in the car, gets the torch from the boot and makes her way to the front door.

By gum, it's dark down here. I wish I didn't have an imagination. I wish I didn't see people crouching, in the dark, behind the bushes.

She hurries up the path, unlocks the door as quickly as she can – Carol wanted it locked if she was going to be alone in the place – and gropes for the switch inside the door. No response. Damn. Those bloody fuses. I will call Gordhavo tomorrow and insist it be sorted. I can't run the Hoover, half the time, because it trips the trip-switch. Good thing there's not a burglar alarm, really, or I'd have the police down wagging their fingers twice a week because it had sent out a false reading.

She's almost immune, now, to the terrors of a darkened house. Flicks the torch round the dining room as she passes through it, just in case, notices that the figurines on the dresser have turned round again, are staring at her from the mirror. I must talk to Yasmin, put a ban on her doing that. She must have to drag a chair up to do it, it's too high otherwise. One day I'll come down and find them all in shards and my daughter lying among them with a split head.

She goes to the stairs. “Hello?”

“OHMYGOD!” bellows Carol. “For
fuck
sake, there you are! I've been bricking it all alone here for the last two hours!”

By torchlight, she looks more than her age. Her facial lines, which seem non-existent by daylight, stand out in relief like fissures in a lava field. Her eyes are the eyes of a hunted rabbit. She is wrapped in the blanket from the sitting-room sofa.

“Sorry! Sorry! Why didn't you call me? I'd've come straight back.”

“My bloody phone doesn't have a signal down here, does it? Bloody Orange. I might as well be in a basement. I've been scared
stupid.
What's happened? What's happened to the lights?”

“It's okay. Hang on a mo, Carol.”

She hears her hovering at the top of the stairs as she scans the banks of switches in the cupboard. Eight of the twenty-three have tripped altogether, as well as the master. She's not seen that many go before: usually it's only one or two. “What were you up to when they went?” she calls.

“I was only drying my hair. I switched on the dryer and bang! Everything went off.”

“Oh, right.”

It's getting worse. You usually have to have the dryer
and
the electric fire on before it overloads.

She flips the switches. The house is bathed in blessed light. “Where's Yasmin?”

“Oh, she slept through the whole thing. She sleeps like the proverbial, that one. Never seen anything like it.”

“Well, if she was asleep already…”

She starts to climb the stairs. Carol's hair is a mess: straightened on one side, a mass of Celtic tangles on the other.

“I need a drink,” says Carol.

“Me, too.”

In the kitchen, which smells strongly of cigarette smoke, a candle burns uselessly on the table beside the bottle of vodka and a glass full of ice. She feels a faint twinge of irritation that Carol has been opening the freezer despite the fact that there's been no power to top the cold back up. The level in the bottle has dropped a good two inches since she went out. She fetches herself a glass, pours them both a drink. Turns to look at Carol and sees that she is so pale beneath her fake tan and that her skin is almost green.

“Good God. I didn't realise you were so nervy.”

“Jesus,” says Carol, “How nervy do you want me to be? That was one of the worst two hours of my life.”

“It was only a power cut, Carol.”

“No, well,” Carol shakes out a Benson, lights it. “It was more than that, actually. There was something…” she sits down suddenly, heavily.

Bridget sits down opposite her. “What?”

“It was – god, it was weird.”

“What?”

“Well, there I was, halfway through drying my hair, when bam, the lights went out. I'm there in the bathroom in nothing but a towel and I can't see a thing. So I feel my way out to the kitchen and find my lighter – at least I remembered where
that
was – and found the candle in the living-room. Thoroughly used, I notice.”

“Mmm. I did
say
there was a prob with the electricity.”

“Yes, well, anyway, I'm putting some clothes on and suddenly it's like all hell's broken loose.”

“What do you mean?”

“There was someone banging on the front door, Bridget. I jumped out of my skin. I couldn't remember if you'd locked it or not, but it sounded like they were really, really desperate to get in.”

Bridget feels a prickle behind her ears. “Someone?”

“I don't know. You know what I thought at first. Of course you do.”

Yes, of course I do. She thought it was Kieran. Back. Found us. Doing what he's been doing for the past five years. She doesn't say anything. Feels nauseous.

“I didn't know what to do, frankly.”

“No… no, I don't suppose you did.”

“So I thought: okay. I can go and look. So I went through. Into the house. And there's this hammering, like two fists banging and banging and banging away, and it's going all through the house, and I'm feeling like – God, what am I meant to do? It's in the middle of nowhere, this place. Where would you go? I mean…”

Don't. Just don't. I don't want to think about it.

“I went into that bedroom with the four-poster in it. I was jumping out of my skin, what with all the curtains being drawn in there and I didn't have the candle with me 'cause I didn't want to let whoever it was know there was someone in the house. And I crept in there and pulled back a corner of the curtain, and… there's not another door, is there? That I've missed?”

Bridget shakes her head. “Not on that side of the house, no. That's the only one.”

“Well, Bridget, there's something very strange about this place. Cause I swear, I could hear them knocking and knocking, bashing on the thing with their fists, but when I looked out, there was no-one there.”

Chapter Thirty-six

But what about us? What about us?

Her hand is shaking as she lays the letter down on the bureau, looks out of the window at the fading garden. The borders by the path are overgrown, dry, straggled. I am forty-three and I've never tried to be anything other than a good wife, and now… now…

…Not be coming back to Cornwall when I get leave... in truth, Felicity, I haven't been happy for a long time, and this war, the death and devastation all around me, has made me see that life is too fragile, too precious…

What about us? What about our children? What do you expect of me? You break my heart, destroy our home, and you want me to be the one to tell them? Are you not man enough to confront your own actions?

I will not cry. I will not. He will not break me. It's not over.

A wave of melancholy sweeps through her. My husband. This is not how my life was meant to be.

She squeezes her eyes tight shut, sets her jaw. When she opens her eyes again, the letter is still there, drawing her gaze towards it, sucking her in. She picks it up again, scans it for hope. Scans it like a cancer patient scans their medical reports for a sign that there has been an error.

We don't love each other. I wonder if we ever did. Our life together has been one of display, of being seen to do the right thing… being away from Rospetroc has given me time to reflect, to see my life as it really is, not reflected through the lens of marital propriety…

What does he mean? What does he
mean
?

You are a good woman, Felicity, and you deserve better than this, but…

There's a sour taste in her mouth. Blood and lemon juice. She swallows. I am a good woman. A
good woman
. But being good isn't enough, is it? Being good is a quality that attracts punishment, it seems, in these addled days.

It is only through her that I have discovered truly, for the first time in my life, what it means to be happy…

Happy? Happy? What do you know about happiness? You think that your sordid little… whore… is happiness?

I shall, of course, observe my responsibilities toward you, and toward Hughie and Tessa, but…

Hughie and Tessa? How dare he? How dare he refer to my children by their pet names, the names we gave them in the days he claimed he loved me, when he came to the hospital with lilies and pearls, when he thanked me, with tears in his eyes, for making him the happiest man alive?

You can say whatever you like to explain my absence, whatever will best preserve your dignity, but I will not be returning to Rospetroc.

Preserve my dignity? How? I am forty-three and have two children and no husband. If you want to preserve my dignity, you will die in this war, the way so many thousand good young men have died, good young men who never did any harm. If you wanted to preserve my dignity, you would leave me a widow. Not leave me like this: not wife, not widow, not honourably unmarried like so many of my generation. You have stolen my life. Stolen my life. What alternatives are there for me now? The woman in the big house whose husband ran off with a…

I am sorry, Felicity. It was never my intention to cause you unhappiness. Perhaps that's why we've both been drinking so much, over the years. I only realised how much more it was than everyone else when I went into the world and saw it with my own eyes. If this damn war had never happened, had not taken me to a wider world, I would, perhaps, have continued unaware in the low misery in which we both existed...

Oh, but you're doing it anyway, aren't you? It was never your intention: never your intention. Salve your own conscience, Patrick. Make yourself the hero of your own good intentions. The outcome is the same.

One day you will see that my decision is for the best, that we are all happier and better off apart…

Felicity Blakemore allows a howl of despair, rage, terror, loss to escape the depths. My husband. My husband. My
life
…

She screws the letter up, throws it at the window. Notices a car bumping down the drive. A little Austin, vaguely familiar.

Hughie. It's Hughie coming home. Hughie will know what to do. Hughie will help me.

She runs down the stairs, through the dining room, out onto the path. Goes back in again to tidy herself in the hall mirror. He will have a Tremayne with him, perhaps that horrid little boy he likes so much as well. I can't let my appearance betray that anything is wrong. I shall greet them and get rid of them, and I will tell him, and he will know what to do. Only fourteen, but he is the wisest, the bravest, the best… he is everything his father isn't. He has been the man of this house for over a year and he will know what to do. He will be angry. He will understand. I will have to stop him from going to London and
hitting
Daddy.

She sees herself and is surprised by the fact that her turmoil barely shows. Her eyes are wide and her skin paler than usual, but her hair – she feels as though she has been pulling it out by the hank – is neat and her makeup, what she wears of it, untouched. No-one will ever know, she thinks. I will walk down the streets of Wadebridge and no-one will look at me and see a woman whose life has been shattered by a single, careless letter.

She longs for a drink.

She steps out onto the path. It's not Hughie. It's Dougie Saul, the churchwarden. And, kicking and spitting as he pulls her along by her collar, Lily Rickett, bane of her life. Felicity Blakemore feels a surge of resentment. When will she ever be rid of her? Why is it, when she is least equipped to cope with her, the girl always does something? Dougie is red in the face with the effort of controlling her and carrying her vile cardboard suitcase in his other hand. Pearl O'Leary and Geoffrey Clark have already been claimed by their parents. Vera Muntz is due to leave for Canada in a week and Ted Betts, nice, willing Ted Betts, has moved into the village to live with the grocer and his wife and pay them back by replacing the delivery boy who went off to war when he attained his majority. The only one left is Lily Rickett. Horrible, dirty Lily Rickett. No-one wants to take her off her hands.

Mrs Blakemore assumes third position, places her palms together, index fingers pointing toward the flagstones.

I will be a paragon of composure, she thinks. Nothing will show. I will not have the village knowing my business.

I want to die. I wish I were dead. Where is Hughie?

“Found her on the Bodmin road again,” pants Dougie.

“Get off me!” snarls Lily. Her hair has grown in now, but, untouched in the months since it had to be taken off for nits, looks, if anything, worse than it did before – tufts and strands in birdsnest tangles. She shouldn't have fought, she thinks. She always fights. She is the most hellish child. If she'd just kept still and let us get on with it. It's not as though she didn't bring it on herself in the first place. Lily’s face is dirty again, and streaked with tears of rage. I've had her nearly half a year and still I can't make her wash. “Let go!” she bellows.

Dougie Saul does as she says: releases his grip with a sudden ferocity so that she drops, surprised, to the ground and grazes her knee. Blood and tears and dirt – it's bad enough on an ordinary day, but today… Today I cannot bear it. Today I want to go to my room and curl up under the covers and shriek. You see photographs, sometimes, of mourning parties in other parts of the world, the native women, no dignity, tearing at their nappy scalps with pieces of stone, dust and blood mingling with their tears. And today I understand what drives them. Today I want to rip at my face with my fingernails, howl at God and life and Patrick. I want him to see what he has done. He cannot walk away and not face the truth of what he has done.

“Thank you, Dougie,” she says. “I'm most grateful.”

“Seems like she really wants to get wherever she's trying to go,” says Dougie.

Go away. Just go away. I can't make small-talk today.

“Portsmouth,” says Lily. “I want to go home to bloody Portsmouth.

“Language, young lady,” says Dougie.

“Oh, bugger off,” she snaps.

Dougie pulls a village face.

“Thank you so much, Dougie,” says Felicity Blakemore again. Should I tip him? Is he waiting for a tip? No. Surely you don't tip churchwardens. If he were the postman, or someone from the garage, perhaps, but… and anyway, I'm damned if I'm going to give tips for bringing this… creature… back into my house. “I'm most grateful,” she repeats.

She turns to the child. Summons all her self-control. Gives her the mothering, nurturing smile the village would expect. “Come inside now, Lily. I should think you could do with some lunch.”

Lily squats on the path and glares at her like an imp sucked accidentally from the void by a passing gust.

Dougie puts the case down. “You're welcome,” he says. “Can't have them wandering about the country willy-nilly. You never know who might come along.”

“Piss off,” says Lily. “I can look after myself.”

“You're nine years old, Lily,” says Felicity, and forces a tinkling, indulgent laugh from somewhere deep inside.

“Oh piss off,” says the child again.

She steps forward. “Give me your hand,” she commands. Snaps her fingers, as you would at a dog.

A look passes between them.
If you play me up
, she threatens, silently.
If you give me one piece of trouble today…

Lily doesn't move.

Felicity Blakemore loses her temper. Grabs the child by the wrist and starts to drag. Lily pulls back, hard. Scrabbles at the ground with her heels. Bucks against her. A memory flashes through her mind, a memory from her own childhood: a veal calf, smelling the blood in the old slaughterhouse behind the barn, panicking and fighting to break free. The three farmhands together, throwing themselves upon it, overpowering it with their size and hauling it, screaming, forward through the door.

“Get off me! Get off!” screams Lily.

“Thank you, Dougie,” she calls again. “I'll see you on Sunday.”

And then it's just the two of them, fighting against each other as she drags her up the path. Lily kicking out, catching her ankle a painful blow as they come through the porch. “Ow! Ow!”

She slams the door. Throws the child to the ground and aims a return kick which connects with her thigh. Bends to rub her ankle and snaps: “That's enough! Enough!”

Her ankle hurts as though it's been struck with an iron bar. Tears start to her eyes. I will not. I will
not
cry.
He
has not been able to make me cry, and this child will not… this hateful child…

Lily is curled up on the cold stone, yapping.

“Get to your room! Go on! Get up there!”

She raises her head, bares her teeth. “No! I won't! I'm not bloody staying here!”

“G
et to your room!”

“Fuck off!”

"Very well," she says. "Well, if you're not going to your room, there are other places."

"You wouldn't dare," says Lily.

"Believe me, young lady, there is
nothing
I wouldn't dare do where you're concerned. So are you going to your room, or am I going to have to put you in the cupboard again?"

Lily rears back. Spits at her like a tomcat. "Fuck
off
!"

She can't hold herself back. Launches into the attack. Grabs the child by her collar and slaps, hard, at her head. I can't bear it. I can't
bear
it. You bloody little… I can't…

“
You… will… do… as… you… are… told…”