Authors: Isabel Ashdown
‘Haven’t you ever wanted to do something reckless, Rob? To throw caution to the wind and just go for it – do whatever the hell you want for a change?’
He doesn’t know how to reply. He’s on the brink of confessing to her the living, breathing outcome of his recklessness – of implicating her in it too – and yet he stands weak in the shadows of this dark cave, barely able to speak. ‘Like what?’ he asks, his voice quiet and still.
‘Like – like anything! Like, jacking your job in and travelling the world? Like, cashing in your savings and moving to France? An adventure! A risk!’ She waves her arms about, the way she does when she’s building up to an argument, building up towards her point. ‘An affair?’ Now she looks angry.
‘What?’ Rob pulls back his chin as if he’s been slapped.
‘An
affair
. Maybe you’re not as squeaky clean as you make out, Rob. You’ve been keeping secrets, I know that much. Since when do we keep secrets from each other?’ She shines the torch at his face, lowers it again when he flinches. ‘The letter, Rob?’
‘The letter,’ he echoes, and anxiety floods back in, waiting as it was for a crack in his armour. He takes out his phone, opens Ava’s message and tries on the link again, groaning inwardly as the green arrow returns, waiting to load. ‘Listen, Laur, I do want to tell you about the letter – about everything. But first, can we get out of this bloody cave?’ he asks. ‘It’s giving me a headache.’
In the bright light of the bay, Laura stands waiting, her arms folded, the wide blue horizon of sea and sky stretching out behind her for miles. ‘I’m listening,’ she says.
Rob glances at the spooling image on his phone, before fixing Laura firmly and holding her gaze. ‘Just tell me one
thing,’ he says. ‘If we had had a child together, what would you have called it?’
Laura pulls a face and turns away from him to face the water. For a moment he thinks she plans to ignore his question, and he turns back to his phone to see the scrolling image as it finally fills the screen, at last revealing the photograph in clear and certain detail. Rob’s breath catches like a choke in the back of his throat. The picture on his phone is one he’s seen before, one of a set of four: a passport photo taken at Camden Market – of him, and Laura, and Wren.
‘Ava,’ Laura replies, spinning on her heel to face him, bringing him back to the moment as his eyes follow the spray of sand kicked up around her boot.
He looks up from his phone.
‘What did you say?’
Laura shakes her head, as if she’s dealing with a madman. ‘You asked me what I would have called our child. I said Ava. If we’d had a girl, I would have called her Ava.’
For a few brief weeks after the Christmas party Rob made the most of his Friday nights, either joining his colleagues for after-work drinks or heading up west alone to take relief in the anonymity of the city wine bars, where, if he was lucky, he might find himself numb in the arms of a stranger for the night. It was unhappy sex, he recognised that much, but in those vital moments the obliteration of thought and solitude was so complete that, for a brief interlude at least, he was soothed. Afterwards, however, his self-loathing was all-encompassing, and the next day he would drive along the motorway towards his parents’ house, berating himself with
thoughts of his baby daughter, who he knew needed him to be as good as he could be.
Several months passed, and still Laura made no contact, sent no forwarding address. It was as if, just like Wren, she had simply vanished. As if she had never been there in the first place. In the shortest space of time he had lost them both, the two people he cared for most in the world, the two people who cared most about him. By Phoebe’s first birthday in May, Wren had been gone for six months, and as he marked it off on his calendar Rob resolved to turn his back on the thankless pleasure-seeking of the past half-year, to dedicate himself to his work, his health, and his family. He enrolled Phoebe in a full-time nursery, where she thrived in the company of other children, and within weeks he was back on track, and being urged by his head to apply for a new deputy head post due for consideration in the autumn. Life was more than tolerable; he had found his way to some kind of peace.
And so, when Laura reappeared just days before Christmas, one full year since she had left, he almost turned her away.
‘Can I stay?’ she asked him. Her skin was tanned, her eyes dark with exhaustion.
‘Can you
stay
?’ he repeated, astounded at the casual tone of her opening words. His fingers gripped the edge of the door frame, his body barring the entrance as his heart hammered against his ribcage. He fought to keep the emotion from his voice. ‘Laura, it’s been over a year. You haven’t phoned, or written – not a word from you to ask how we’re doing!’
‘I’m sorry, Rob. I’m so,
so
sorry. You’re right to still be angry at me.’
‘Angry? Laura – you’re a year too late for anger.’ Rob spoke softly, conscious as he was of Phoebe napping in the living room just along the hall. ‘I did all that in the weeks and months after you disappeared on me. I’m not angry about it any more – just sad.’
She shook her head, tears coursing down her cheeks. ‘I was so ashamed after what we did – everything changed in that instant, Rob, and I couldn’t…’ Her words trailed off as she swiped at her face and reached down for her old army rucksack in a move to leave.
Rob stared at Laura’s face, so familiar and reassuring, and silently urged her to raise her eyes and meet his. ‘We needed you, Laur,’ he said, his tone softening as his own tears threatened to break through. ‘We missed you.’
‘Let me come in, Rob, please? Just let me explain? Let me see Phoebe?’
When it came to it he couldn’t send her away. Despite everything, he couldn’t shut her out; he wanted her there more than he wanted her gone. ‘Let’s talk,’ he replied, and he stood aside to let Laura through, and she fell back into his life.
‘Ava…?’ Rob stands on the beach, feet planted wide, anchoring him to the earth lest he lets go and the whole world unravels. He grips his phone in one hand, still reeling from the image on the screen, the fingers of his other hand holding tight to the blue glass pebble in his pocket. ‘Why Ava?’
Laura looks tiny against the backdrop of the empty beach. Out above the rocks, sea birds float and soar between coast and field, casting their cries out into the wide sky. This
is a beautiful place; he understands how Wren might have found her peace here.
‘Why? I don’t know – something about bird names, I think. Like Phoebe – Phoebe’s a bird name too.’
Rob cannot pull his eyes from her face. She looks puzzled as she stares back, hands thrust into the pockets of her oversized parka, hair coiling around her head like fire. ‘What is it, Rob?’ she asks, the concern in her voice rising. ‘I know this is stressful – worrying for you. But you look as if you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders.’
A group of surfers appear on the beach between them and the rocks, jogging across the sand with boards under their arms. They wade out into the sea, launching on to their surfboards, swimming out with powerful strokes to reach the deeper waters where the tide rises and falls.
Rob holds out a hand to Laura and leads her back to the small mound of rocky boulders surrounding the entrance to the cave, where they sit together, with the view of the beach and rocks before them. He slides the blue pebble from his pocket and places it in her hand, folding her fingers over it, wanting her to hold tight to its reassuring smooth edges. ‘I’m going to tell you about the letter,’ he says. ‘But first, I want you to tell me about that year you spent away. After Wren had gone, after we had – ’ He breaks off, unable to finish the sentence, the guilt of their actions capable of such power even after all these years.
Laura turns the pebble over in her hands, her eyes downcast. ‘You know about that year, Rob. It wasn’t a good one for me.’
‘You said you went travelling. Island-hopping, you said?’
‘At first I went back to my parents’ for a time, while Doug and I put the flat up for sale. When it was sold, I
couldn’t contemplate staying around, and my head was all over the place, after… well, you know.’
‘You were distraught, when you left.’
She flips the pebble over, slips it in her pocket. ‘Of course I was – we both were! We would have been no better than monsters if we hadn’t been. After all those years of friendship? I’d always loved you, Rob – I mean, properly loved you – but I understood that it was meant to be you and Wren, and I would never, ever have made my true feelings known.’
She turns to face him for a moment, to check his response. He nods for her to continue.
‘And Wren – I loved her so much it hurt. She was more than a sister to me; I can’t explain it. After she’d gone, I was incomplete. I was rootless, I suppose, and that’s why I went travelling. To
find myself
.’ She says these last words with irony, trying to make light of it, but it’s not light; it’s not ironic.
‘So you went travelling, for the whole year?’
‘Well, not the whole year, but yes, I went travelling. You know this! Look, Rob, what’s with all the questions? I don’t understand why you’re so interested after all these years. It’s a long time ago.’
Rob reaches inside his jacket and brings out the folded letter, offering it to Laura between two fingers. Dark smudges run along the creased edges and scored folds, where he’s carried it around with him, terrified to let it far from his grasp.
‘The letter?’ she asks, looking at him cautiously as she takes it from his hand. ‘The one from your “old college pal”?’
‘Read it,’ he replies.
For a few minutes they sit in silence, Laura bent over her knees, fingers pressed against her mouth, her eyes scanning
the words as she reads and rereads the letter. She turns to look at him, her stunned expression asking all the questions she can’t find the words for.
‘Did you see the name at the foot of the page?’ he asks.
‘Ava,’ she whispers, her eyes locking on the surfers as they cross the horizon, silhouetted shape-shifters standing tall. ‘You have another daughter –
called Ava
?’
‘That’s right,
Ava
. We’ve emailed each other, and she’s given me a few details of her birth – where she was found, her birth date and so on.’
‘And?’ Laura asks. Her skin is ashen.
‘She was born on the first of August 1995. She could have been born several weeks early or late – but it means that anyone I was with around that time could be the mother.’ He hesitates, his eyes roaming her face for signs of acknowledgement. ‘Laura –
you
could be her mother.’
With a gasp Laura thrusts the letter back at him, her eyes wide. ‘Are you seriously asking me if I’m the mother of this girl? And, what – I just gave her away and jumped on the first plane to Greece?’ She rises, steps away from the rock, sweeps her hands over her face. ‘How could you – how could you even think that, Rob? Do you have any idea what I would have given for a child of my own?’
Rob stands, passes her the phone. ‘Just take a look at this, Laur. This is the photograph Ava’s mother left with her.’
Staring at the image, she shakes her head in disbelief, looking from the screen to Rob’s face as she processes the information. She pushes the phone back into his palm and starts to rummage in her pockets, bringing out her leather wallet. ‘I can’t believe – ’ Laura sighs, more to herself than to Rob, and she crouches over the sand, opening the wallet, flinging out credit cards and loyalty cards and stamps and
receipts and vouchers, until eventually she unearths it. It’s tiny and tatty and rough at the edges but it’s the real thing, held out to him in trembling fingers – it’s her copy of the photograph.
Rob’s thoughts whirl, as he too retrieves the picture stored in his wallet, identical to the one he gave to Phoebe just this morning. He holds it up beside Laura’s. Exactly the same. Photograph number three.
Far out in the bay, two figures appear from beyond the craggy rocks, their figures gaining shape and clarity as they come out of the shadows and on to the beach. As the pair walks towards them across the sand, silhouettes against the purpling sky, their posture and gait is almost indistinguishable from one another, and it’s only when Phoebe raises her hand, waves to them in a wide arcing motion, that Rob knows for sure which is which. Rob and Laura stand on the beach, transfixed by the image of Wren walking towards them at Phoebe’s side. Their hands feel for each other as Rob watches her, watches Wren – really, truly, Wren, walking towards him again, after all these years.
‘It’s Wren’s photograph,’ Laura murmurs, her voice low and composed. ‘
Wren
is Ava’s mother.’
The morning it dawned on Wren that she was pregnant again, thoughts of suicide passed through her mind like fast-moving clouds in a dark sky. In the months since Phoebe had arrived, she had separated so far from her original self that she had no way of knowing if these thoughts were serious or real; they simply appeared as clear and rational possibilities streaming through her consciousness on a spinning reel.
She hadn’t taken a test and she didn’t need to – the signs were all there, recognisable from the first time round. It was a Saturday morning and she was standing in the bathroom, her arms huddled about her as she listened intently to the tinny sound of the rain driving hard against the window that looked out over the lawns of their lovely garden. She had been in there a while, avoiding Rob and Phoebe, who were in the kitchen taking their time over breakfast, peppering the air with cheery sounds. Were weekends worse? she wondered. Were the days worse when there was company, or were they better? Fuller, or lonelier still? She couldn’t say. Time had become an endless foe, stretching out in long chunks of emptiness, in which she could sit for unknown lengths, simply thinking – or not thinking, focusing on the strange details of the objects in a room, wondering what could be considered real, what a figment of her imagination. The shadows of the shifting day moved things; she watched as the light and shade slipped around the kitchen, altering those objects, causing her to suspect them to be phantoms,
seen only by her. Sometimes she would sit and watch for hours, sure that she might catch them out with her stealth and resilience. Now, she stood at the washbasin, scrutinising her dark-eyed reflection in the mirror, her pulse throbbing low as her mind lurched across the thought of bringing a new child –
another baby
– into this house. It was a madness, a horror, an unthinkable scenario.
She harboured no delusions about her condition and accepted it as some kind of depression, though she had never voiced as much, for fear of alarming Robert and making things worse. Six months had passed now, and still she was in this trough of unspoken despair – yet Phoebe was a happy, healthy baby, all smiles and affection, and Wren
did
love her. That much she knew: she felt love for her, even if it was on a subdued plane of emotion. Why did it all feel so very wrong? It had to be something in her, something that was in her mother too, and maybe on and on, travelling backwards throughout their maternal history. Perhaps they shared a recessive gene that meant mothering was outside of their sphere of capabilities? Was it mothering that was the problem – or home-making – or simply the act of loving? How could she know the answer to these things; how could she
ever
know?
She ran cold water over her hands and drew them across her face, pushing cool fingers up into her hairline, rapt at the sweep of her eyebrows, brushing up and out in a mask of surprise. When would the fog lift, she wondered; when would she start to feel like herself again, to experience living in the moment instead of through a screen, like a spectator in a cinema audience, watching at a distance?
Drying her hands on the towel, she kept an eye on the mirror, trying to catch out her reflection. The copy of
her never looked away, eyes remaining locked no matter which way she moved her head, left, right, up and around – she wouldn’t be tricked. Wren moved closer to the mirror, breathed on the glass to generate a circle of mist and stepped back to watch it disappear again like a ghost.
That’s what I am
, she thought.
A ghost. I drift about this place like mist, seen by few, heard by none. Dear God, how would I cope with a second child?
When Robert knocked on the bathroom door Wren almost screamed, so astonished was she by the reminder that she was not alone. She clasped the towel to her chest, unbolting the door and throwing it back with more force than she knew she had in her, causing it to crash noisily against the shower screen. Robert recoiled as if expecting an attack. Did he fear her? That wasn’t possible. She blinked at the small dot of shaving tissue he had stuck to his jawline and repressed a nervous smile, grateful that he could not gain access to the jumble of words and images inside her head.
‘That was Laura on the phone,’ he said, his expression grave.
Of course
! Here was her answer, her salvation – how could she not have thought of it before – here it was, in the shape of Laura and her unborn child. Laura who had come to them so recently with the news of her pregnancy, joyous and hopeful that this would be the one that made it, the child that would make her a mother at last. This was how it was meant to be –
this time
Wren wouldn’t be alone. She would have Laura by her side, going through the same alterations and uncertainty. A baby, something Laura had longed for so deeply and for too long, and now Wren would be able to share it with her, and they would be together. In a rush of exhilaration she shifted her gaze to meet Robert’s eyes square-on.
The tiniest bob of his head told her that he understood the answer too, that she only had to say the words and they would make it all right again, the three stooges united once more: three leaves of a clover, three legs of a stool. Her words rushed from her like spilt milk. ‘We must get her to move in, Rob. There’s plenty of room, isn’t there? And she won’t miss Doug – he’s a waste of space, even Laura says so. You know about the drugs, don’t you? You can’t bring a child up in that kind of environment. God, she must be desperate to get out of there! I think this baby is just what she needs to climb out of the rut she’s in, and we could help – ’
‘Wren, stop,’ he said, reaching out a hand to slow her down.
‘What?’ She took a step back to avoid his touch.
‘There is no baby, Wren. That’s why she was calling. She’s just come back from the hospital – she lost the baby.’
Wren sank to the floor like a carcass, her arms curling up over the back of head, her hands clamping against her ears. From far, far away the sound of keening was drifting towards her, a high, animal cry of grief and longing. How could Laura go on after this, after such endless loss, so unfair, so cruel? Wren retreated deeper inside herself and dreamt of death, of delirious, dark, infinite death.
The girl, for Wren can’t yet begin to think of her as ‘Phoebe’, sits at the table watching her stir the soup. She feels her eyes on her back, can almost hear the tick and whirr of her mind as it races about the room, searching for prompts to start conversation.
Conversation
. What a strange concept that is to Wren nowadays, for a woman who can go for days on end – weeks sometimes – barely exchanging more than the
briefest ‘good morning’ or ‘thank you’ with the man who serves her coffee at the beachside. Even down by the water, when she passes fellow walkers or the surfers who frequent her golden bay, nothing more than a nod is ever required, and that’s the way she likes it. That way peace lies. She thinks now of Arthur, of him watching Laura and Robert pass by his kiosk on their way down to the beach. If they stop for a drink, she knows he’ll chat, and she hopes Laura takes care to be discreet, to protect her anonymity in this small corner of her world.
The girl cuts bread, making a hash of the job, and apologises, calling herself cack-handed. That’s one of Robert’s expressions; he’s passed it on. Back in their old student flat it was always Robert or Wren who sliced the bread, or served up the cake, as it would end up in bits if left to Laura. ‘You’re cack-handed,’ he’d say, taking the knife from her and righting the damage she’d done. Laura would stick her fingers up, or snub her nose, and Wren would laugh at the pair of them bickering like siblings. The memory is like an old film in her mind’s eye, in which the three of them, Wren, Rob and Laura, sit on upturned fruit crates in the garden of Victoria Terrace pouring tea and serving up marble cake, the light catching in the gleam of Laura’s smile, in the gloss of Robert’s floppy fringe. They were so happy, for such a long time.
Wren serves up the soup and takes a seat on the other side of the table. She glances up at the girl, at Phoebe, and sees her fully for the first time, sitting across from her, startled as a deer. This means a great deal to her, Wren can see; she can’t allow the meal to continue in silence in this way – it would be unkind, unfair. She wishes she could find it in herself to send the girl away – it would be the easiest thing, the
safest
thing – but she simply can’t, and in her
deepest reserves she knows she doesn’t want to. It’s wrong, this selfish desire to be near her, when she has neither claim nor understanding of the emotion, no right to feel anything towards her at all – and she searches the face that looks back at her for signs of anger or resentment, wondering just what it is she can do for her or say to her to ease her anxiety. Despite her discomfort the girl doesn’t look away, but Wren barely notices, so transfixed is she by her features, which appear at once familiar and alien, like some half-remembered dream. She has sprung from Wren, it’s clear, and yet there’s much of her that is Robert. There’s something else in there too, another element that reflects outwards in the steadfast glint of her eyes and the pucker of her lips, and with a silent lurch of exhilaration Wren recognises it for what it is. It’s Laura: she has Laura’s spirit, and it radiates from her like a shaft of morning light.
‘Laura tells me you’re expecting a child,’ Wren says. She dunks the crust into her soup and brings it to her mouth, trying hard to read the expression on the girl’s face. ‘How far gone are you?’
The colour drains from Phoebe’s face. She feels for the scarf around her neck, instinctively searching for the silky care label that nestles between its folds, smoothing it between crossed fingers like the hand of a child protecting itself against a white lie. Wren feels helpless as the girl’s eyes fill with moisture. She’s really not very good at this kind of thing. She takes a deep breath. Maybe they could start again.
The purchase of Tegh Cottage was fairly quick and simple; it was a vacant property, and Wren was a cash buyer. In the couple of weeks prior to completion she stayed at the
Metropole hotel, where she slept late in the mornings and ate meals in her room. In the afternoons she would stroll through the tranquil streets of Padstow, taking comfort from the sights and sounds of industry around the lobster hatchery and harbour, resting on the bench at the old pier to watch the autumn sun as it sank beyond the horizon. By the time she took possession of the cottage she had erased all thoughts of her old life, of Robert and Phoebe – of Laura – and the baby growing inside her was denied acknowledgement.
Her new home was just right for her needs, overlooked by no one, its only neighbour the meadow and the dirt path that ran alongside the front hedge. To begin with she was glad of her car, as she trekked to and from Constantine and Padstow, organising supplies and following up contacts suggested to her by the man at the beach café. It was a hard winter, and for Wren a period of toil unlike anything she had ever experienced before – the tough physical graft of digging out her vegetable patch in readiness for the spring, of stripping and sanding and painting, of shoring up the perimeters of her home to make it secure. Arthur helped to organise a small chest freezer to be delivered, along with a washing machine and a second-hand oven, and she spent several consecutive days driving back and forth between garden centres, building up a stock of tools, how-to manuals and early seeds. But before long it became clear she had everything she needed and the car, with all its cheery echoes of domesticity from a time before, became a source of anxiety to her, filtering into her thoughts and dreams, and threatening to bring unwanted complication to her door. It was the paperwork that would create the real problems, she realised – when the tax and insurance ran out, she’d have to fill out new paperwork, and that was something she simply couldn’t do. She had gone to
great lengths to erase her trail, changing her surname, and giving her childhood family address when asked for previous residences on deed and utility documents. This car was an impediment, and it had to go.
The dilemma came to a head when she awoke in the early hours of a frosty December morning, disturbed again by the incessant night anguish fuelled by the presence of that car. She rose from her bed, pulling on thick socks to protect her feet from the ice chill of the flagstone floor, and padded through to the living room. At the front window she peered out into the darkness, where her eyes were drawn to the distinctive shape – the tail end of the car – visible through the bars of the front gate. It had to go
now
. Dressing rapidly, she pulled on jeans, sweater, boots and winter coat, and packed a bag with food and water, uncertain how long she might be gone. In the back room she dragged out the wooden trunk and rummaged through the paraphernalia of the time before, carefully reading labels and selecting a handful of items to drop in her bag, before dashing to the back of the house to snatch up the box of cook’s matches from beside the hob. Silently, she slipped from the house.
Out on the main road in the black of early morning, she had no plan as to where she was heading, so she followed her instincts and drove west along unfamiliar coastal paths, keeping an eye on the dashboard clock, wanting to be sure she had driven a safe distance from her new home in the bay. After twenty minutes or so, she picked up signs to Mawgan Porth and left the main route to follow the dark country lanes until she came out at a small beach resort and a cluster of cafés and bars overlooking the water. By now it was coming up for five, and as she slowed the car to pass through the resort she could see already there were signs of
life inside some of the buildings, small flickerings of light and movement, the hum of generators cranking up for the day. She kept driving, passing through the small community, up and round the winding roads, onwards without thought, until eventually she spotted a dirt layby at the side of the road, in a secluded spot overlooking nothing but fields and hedgerows. Wren wound down the front windows and turned off the engine, grabbing her bag and stepping out of the car. Unlocking the boot, she checked to make sure there was nothing left behind, before opening the passenger door to search through the glovebox. She retrieved a small hand torch and ice scraper, stuffing them inside her bag as things of use, and continued pulling out scraps of paper and old maps, which she bunched up and discarded on the back seat. At the very bottom of the glovebox was a favourite old Paisley scarf of Wren’s, one she’d spent hours searching for previously, and she pulled it out now, wondering what it was that connected people so irrationally to
things
. Things that meant nothing. As the scarf unravelled, a small mitten dropped from its silky tangle, and it lay on the passenger seat, its tiny woollen thumb pointing at Wren like an accusation. In a breath, she gathered the mitten up in a ball of scarf and threw them atop the paper pyre on the back seat, on to which she poured the remains of a bottle of nail polish remover, and the highly scented contents of an expensive
eau de parfum
. Standing back, she hoisted her bag over her shoulder and lit a match.