The One I Was (14 page)

In search of further reassurance I looked at the dressing table. Mum must have found some little candles. She’d arranged them in a horseshoe shape on the dressing table. In the middle was a photograph of Granny and Mum herself, with Andrew and me. Dad must have taken it years ago; Andrew and I were tiny.

‘I find it reassures me,’ Mum said, following my gaze. ‘I feel the presence of something more powerful than me when I light the candles and sit there. It calms me.’

‘What does Cathal think about all this?’ It felt strange, almost grown-up, to be having a conversation of this kind with my mother.

Mum laughed. ‘He teases me. But it helps me, it really does.’ And she gave an embarrassed half-shrug.

But there were already more important things on my mind. I scanned the dressing table for the bottle of pills. There it was, towards the back, along with some discarded hair pins and cotton wool puffs. Mum saw me looking at the bottle.

‘I’ve already had this morning’s.’ She nodded at her shrine. ‘It’s as if Granny is encouraging me. But Cathal doesn’t think I should take drugs.’

Questions burned in my mind.

‘He thinks I can heal myself, with his support. He says it’s my soul that is hurt and it doesn’t need drugs.’

‘You promised Granny you’d do what the doctors say.’

‘I know.’ Mum bowed her head.

The following morning Mum complained of having a cold. She stayed in bed. Cathal continued with the day’s lessons. History. He told us the story of Henry VIII and the break with Rome, of Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas More. When Cathal taught you history it was like listening to a really good story. Even Andrew had stopped frowning when Cathal was explaining something and listened, his head resting on his arm.

‘So there you have it, a huge religious change brought about by one man falling for one woman. And that wasn’t the end of Henry’s marital adventures. These are all the women he married.’

Cathal turned to the blackboard and started writing the names of all the wives. The chalk snapped.

The expression in his eyes turned to that sudden frustrated anger that I had noticed before, when he’d spilled tea on the grass. He said something under his breath, then saw me watching him and switched back to his composed-schoolteacher manner.

‘There’s a new box of chalk in my front jacket pocket, on a chair in the kitchen. Go and fetch it for me, Rosie.’

The kitchen was empty. Smithy must be upstairs. I found Cathal’s tweed jacket. The front pocket was empty. Something was stuffed into the inside pocket, however. I unzipped it. Inside was a newspaper cutting, folded over. It seemed to burn in my fingers. I looked over my shoulder. Nobody was watching me. I unfolded the paper.

It was an article from the
Oxford Mail
about Granny’s death and the funeral, with photographs of the house and a description of the estate. I scanned it quickly: …
one of the
first women to fly a Spitfire
…
Fairfleet House
…
example of Palladian architecture
…
Lord Dorner
…
survived by her only child, Clarissa Madison
…
now inherits
…

Why had Cathal cut this out of the newspaper? Granny’s funeral had happened before he’d come to Fairfleet, so why had he taken such an interest in a stranger? The paper in my fingers still seemed to burn me. I refolded it and put it back in his pocket. Then I changed my mind and took the cutting out again and stuffed it under the band of my trousers. The box of chalk had fallen out of his jacket onto the kitchen floor.

For the rest of the morning I tried to concentrate on Henry and his wives, and then on the first part of
Hiawatha
, which Cathal read to us in that expressive voice of his.

Everything was fine, I told myself. Mum would take her pills. Cathal was helping her with the money. Andrew and I were having lessons again, doing really well, Cathal said.

After lunch I stuffed the newspaper cutting under my mattress, on top of the metal springs on the bedstead, being sure to push it out of the reach of Smithy’s fingers when she came to change the bed linen.

17

A low beam of sunlight emerged from behind a cloud and illuminated Benny and me where we sat, thirty years after I had found the newspaper clipping in Cathal’s pocket. In the space between us bright motes of dust glittered briefly like half-lost memories. I gave myself a mental kick and reminded myself that I needed to count out Benny’s tablets, refill the water jug, check the oxygen cylinder.

Benny blinked at me and turned his head away from the light.

‘Shall I close the curtains?’ I asked.

‘No.’ He looked back at me. ‘Just for a second …’ He shook his head. ‘I’m seeing things that aren’t there. Is it part of the illness?’ His features crumpled.

‘Possibly. It sometimes happens.’ It was best, I’d learned, to be honest about what I did and didn’t know. ‘Sometimes people tell me that they see things. Sometimes they don’t mind. If they do, I have a word with the doctor.’ I passed him his water glass. ‘Drink this.’

‘How did you know I was thirsty?’ He sipped the water. ‘You’re very good at this, Rosamond.’

‘I like my work.’ It was the truth. I’d come here with another purpose – an obsession, others had said – in mind. And a need to run away from what had happened to me more recently. It was easy to forget all this when I was with Benny. I thought he’d be interesting, but I hadn’t expected to relish his company so completely. I needed to be careful, on my guard. He was still observing me as I replaced his glass on the table.

‘You can leave me now.’ He glanced at the laptop beside him on the pillow. ‘I’ll ring the bell if I need anything. Go for a walk or read the paper or talk to Sarah. You know I have visitors later on?’

Old work colleagues, Sarah had told me.

‘I’ll look in again in twenty minutes.’

‘I’m not a bloody baby.’ He folded his arms and came close to scowling at me.

‘And I’m not a maternity nurse, either.’

His lips twitched as he reached for the laptop, but his concentration was on the screen, on whatever it was he was writing. I noticed that there was a yellow tone to his face now. Jaundice. The cancer was working away on him.

As I walked across the landing the window above the stairs showed me clouds massing in the sky to the east, tinged with yellow and beige. Snow. Probably by evening. Possibly heavy. I shivered. We’d been snowed in that last winter I’d lived at Fairfleet, isolated from the rest of the world. Our enchanted refuge had become a beautiful prison.

Sarah was washing up in the kitchen. ‘I’m popping down to the shop with Max,’ she said.

‘I’ll keep an ear open for Benny,’ I said. ‘You shouldn’t delay your walk: look at those clouds.’

She frowned. ‘Snow. I always worry that the doctor won’t be able to get up the drive if it’s too heavy. Or the extra nurses for the nights, if and when we need them.’ Sarah took off her apron and whistled for the dog, who appeared from underneath the table.

‘Could you get me some more clementines?’ I asked. I’d been making tiny ice-lollies for Benny from the juice. He liked them when his mouth was dry from the medication.

She put on Max’s lead and found her boots and coat. I watched them stride out round the side of the house to the lane, the dog almost beaming with the joy of an excursion.

Time alone in the house, except for Benny upstairs. I felt a tingle of anticipation.

I knew where I needed to go now. Down into that basement. I gave another quick glance through the window at the clouds massing in the sky and felt myself again becoming a young girl. Thirty years ago snow had brought events at Fairfleet to a head. At the time, I’d felt its arrival as pure thrill.

*

When December came that winter of 1981 the weather forgot this was England, not Russia or Canada.

I opened my curtains one morning and saw the snow. My heart leaped. The lake might freeze, a rare but wonderful occurrence. The skates would still be down in the basement, waiting for us to use. Outside everything would sparkle. And the topiary animals would be giant Christmas biscuits frosted with icing sugar. I banged on Andrew’s door.

‘Snow!’ We were pulling on Wellington boots and scarves and running across the white lawn within minutes.

The lake hadn’t frozen yet. ‘Another day or two.’ Andrew peered at it from the small landing jetty. We scrunched back to the kitchen, blowing on damp, woollen-gloved hands.

‘I always forget how really cold snow is.’ I shook my wrists.

‘Idiot.’ But his smile was kind. The snow had cheered him up.

Cathal met us on the landing, eyes bright. ‘We must all go sledging. Have you a toboggan, Andrew?’

‘Ours was left at home – where we used to live with our dad, I mean, when we moved here,’ Andrew said.

‘I used to have a sledge,’ Mum called out from her room. ‘I doubt Granny threw it out. It’s probably down in the basement.’

‘Damn lessons for once,’ said Cathal. ‘
This
is a lesson. A geography lesson and a physics lesson and all kinds of other lessons too, if I put my mind to it.’ He turned to Andrew. ‘Find that toboggan. Clarrie, pull on waterproofs. Fun shall be the order of the day.’

Perhaps Cathal was getting a bit above himself, ordering us around like this, but even Andrew didn’t seem to resent him this morning. Smithy, however, was having none of it. She stood on the staircase to the top floor, arms folded.

‘It’s a long walk to the nearest hill,’ she said.

Cathal’s face fell, but only for a moment. ‘I’ll tie the toboggan to the back of the car and pull it up and down the drive. The kids’ll love it.’

‘Come on.’ Andrew was already running downstairs. ‘I’ll find the toboggan.’ I had never seen him respond so enthusiastically before to any of Cathal’s suggestions.

‘The runners will need waxing,’ Mum called after him. ‘Ask Smithy for some beeswax.’

‘I’ll go and find it for him.’ With a sigh Smithy followed Andrew down. Mum caught my eye.

‘Boys, eh?’

‘Will you come out too?’ I asked. ‘Please?’

Mum hesitated.

‘Of course she will, won’t you, Clarrie?’ Cathal put an arm around her. ‘It’ll do you good. You’ve spent too much time worrying about money.’

Mum smiled back at him and looked suddenly years younger.

A series of thumps from below told us that Andrew had located the toboggan and was bringing it up from the basement. I rushed downstairs to look at it. Smithy was already polishing the metal runners with the wax. She always preferred to use her dusters herself, not trusting other people with them.

‘Mind you take care.’ She put the lid on the polish. ‘That drive’s not as smooth as it looks. Don’t go too fast.’ She addressed the words to Cathal as he came downstairs, without looking at him.

Cathal winked at Andrew. He was wearing a smart ski jacket and carrying a pair of boots specially designed for snowy weather and looked a bit like James Bond. He even had sunglasses folded up in a top pocket, ready to put on. I hadn’t noticed him bringing his possessions into Fairfleet, but clearly this had happened at some point.

‘Where did you go skiing?’ Mum asked.

‘Switzerland,’ he said.

‘Oh when?’ she asked. ‘I used to love Verbier.’

‘Some years ago,’ he answered casually.

The jacket looked fairly new.

‘Isn’t skiing awfully expensive?’ Smithy asked. I knew she was wondering how someone like Cathal could have afforded that kind of holiday and all the clothes and equipment.

‘A friend treated me.’ His eyes were on the toboggan. ‘She looks grand. Let’s go.’

Mum had put on wellingtons, old waterproof trousers that Granny had used when she cleared algae from the lake, and an old fur jacket that must once have been Granny’s too. A scarf was wound around her neck. She looked very young this morning.

Cathal fetched a length of rope from the car boot, left over from the timber-buying excursion. He tied the sledge to the rope in a neat knot and then fastened the rope to the tow bar.

‘Someone taught you sailing knots,’ Mum said.

‘We had a boat when I was a boy.’ He looked at her more closely. ‘Where’s that other scarf, the blue one?’

‘Upstairs. This one is cashmere, warmer.’ She snuggled her neck into it.

‘But the blue one matches your eyes better.’ He put down the rope. ‘I’ll get it.’

‘But I’m happy with this one.’

‘It’s no trouble.’ He flicked off his boots at the front door and ran inside past Smithy, returning quickly with the scarf. She started to protest but then shrugged, removing her scarf and replacing it with the blue one. Smithy watched from the stairs, eyes narrowed, silent.

‘Now who’s first?’ he said.

‘Me!’ begged Andrew.

‘You and Rosie can share the first ride.’ Cathal opened the car door. Andrew and I clambered onto the sledge. At first it didn’t seem to want to glide through the snow as it ought. Snow clogged its runners as the car towed it so that it jerked, threatening to snap its rope, throwing wet shards into our faces. Then the rope tautened and we shot forward again. The journey to the bottom of the drive was a disappointment.

Cathal slowed to a halt at the end of the drive and wound down the window. ‘It’ll be easier on the way back,’ he said. ‘We’ve compacted the snow down. Jump off now while I turn the car.’

On our return the toboggan seemed to know what was expected of it. We flew down the drive, little pieces of ice flying into our faces, the snow swooshing cleanly underneath the runners. Andrew laughed, a sound I hadn’t heard for months.

‘This is brilliant,’ he called out to Mum. ‘You’ve got to try it.’

I jumped off. ‘Have a go.’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Mum eyed the toboggan. ‘I’m happy just watching you two.’

‘I insist,’ Cathal called from the car.

‘Watch out for potholes,’ Smithy said from the steps, where she stood with arms folded. ‘And don’t drive too fast.’

Cathal rolled his eyes at me. Mum climbed on behind Andrew, holding him round the waist. Andrew, my serious, critical brother, was grinning with the fun of it.

Cathal released the handbrake and the car moved forward, pulling the toboggan. Mum let out a laugh of delight. As they approached the oak trees on the left of the drive he accelerated.