The Day She Came Back(19)

‘Thank you so much for coming. I’m Victoria.’ She touched her fingertips to her chest. ‘I saw you in the churchyard and I wanted to say hello.’

‘Victoria.’ The woman breathed the word, her face crumpled and her tears fell harder.

‘Please don’t cry,’ Victoria repeated, placing a hand on the woman’s forearm. Rather awkwardly, the woman put her hand over hers, holding it tightly. It was not only an odd sensation to see someone, a stranger, so affected by the death of her beloved grandma, but also this physical contact was odd, embarrassing even. She carefully extricated her hand and curled her fingers against her thigh, cringing more than a little.

‘Victoria,’ the woman repeated, again with a quiver to her mouth and yet more tears.

‘Yes, I’m Prim’s granddaughter.’

The woman nodded and looked at the floor, trying and failing to catch her breath. Victoria followed her eyeline, and both stared at the rounded toes of the woman’s black patent Mary Janes, which now stood firmly planted in the hard-baked mud at the side of the lake.

The woman mumbled something too quiet for her to discern. Victoria had to lean in closer.

‘I’m sorry, I missed that.’ She cupped her ear. ‘What did you say?

‘I said . . .’ The woman straightened, swallowed and looked her in the eye. ‘I said, “Your name isn’t Victoria.”’

‘Oh!’ She let out a small, embarrassed laugh. ‘It is. Yes, I’m Victoria.’ She smiled nervously. It was a strange thing for this person to say to her. Was the woman nuts, just some random interloper who had found her way into their home? Was she grief-stricken? Confused? Victoria glanced towards the back of the house and was both happy and relieved to see Gerald still in the chair of the garden room and, further along in the kitchen, Mrs Joshi and Daksha pottering around the sink. She took great comfort from knowing they were only a yell away.

The woman shook her head. ‘No, your name isn’t Victoria.’

‘Okaaay.’ Victoria raised her eyebrows, thinking she would get this conversation over as quickly as possible and make her way back into the house. Even the maudlin, quiet gathering of the pensioner bees was better than this. ‘What is it then?’ she challenged, intrigued. ‘What’s my name?’

‘Victory.’ She smiled. ‘Your name is Victory.’

The woman searched her face and Victoria saw a brief reflection of something so familiar it made her heart jump.

‘Victory?’ She bit her lip. ‘Is that right?’

‘Yes, a strong name, a name that I thought would see you through anything.’

Victoria took a step backward.

Her heart beat loudly in her ears and her stomach flipped with nausea. Whatever this was, whatever joke, prank or deception, she was not enjoying it and wanted to be anywhere else. It was as if her feet had grown roots in the mud and, as much as she wanted to run, she felt stuck.

‘I don’t know why you would say that to me. Who are you? Who did you come with? Because I will see if they are ready to leave.’ Still she was torn between wanting to throw the woman out and being polite: it was a funeral, after all. She was aware she had raised her voice slightly.

‘Who am I?’ The woman’s tone suggested the question almost pained her.

‘Yes, who are you?’ Victoria asked, more forcefully now, as fear caused the blood to rush in her ears and her heart clattered out an unnatural beat.

‘This . . . this is even more beautiful than I remembered it.’ The woman ignored the question and looked out over the water. ‘My dad used to spend hours and hours tending the plants while my mum sat here shouting instructions from under the brim of her hat, usually eating a pear.’ She smiled and wiped at her eyes, which had misted. ‘“To eat the whole thing, core, stalk and all, is both prudent and economic.” That’s what she used to say to me; I don’t know where she got that. She had lots of funny little sayings and ways.’

How the hell? Victoria couldn’t speak, her leaden limbs meant she couldn’t move and she was aware of her breathing, which was unnaturally loud in her ears.

‘I want to tell you who I am, but this will be hard for you to hear . . .’

Then I don’t want to hear it . . . I don’t want to hear it . . . I don’t . . . Victoria’s sixth sense told her that whatever the woman was about to say was far more than she was able to cope with today.

There was a beat or two of silence while the woman prepared to speak and Victoria braced herself to listen. They looked at each other and Victoria felt an uncomfortable current of recognition. No! No! No! No! You are mad, Victoria. You are going mad!

The woman took a deep breath and raised her chin.

‘I’m your mum.’

Victoria shook her head vigorously and felt a bolt of sickness fire through her gut.

‘No, you’re not! And that is not funny. Not remotely funny, today of all days. I would like you to leave. Leave right now! Go on! Get out!’ All consideration of politeness now gone, she pointed towards the path that led to the driveway at the front of the house. Shaking her head, she walked to the kitchen without looking back, trying to reach the safety of the house as quickly as possible, ignoring the bunching in her gut and the scary feeling that sat on her shoulders like a weight as her limbs trembled. It was odd, a hoax, a cruel joke, whatever. The woman had clearly been snooping around. Victoria pictured the private correspondence that Prim kept in the top of the bureau in the drawing room. Oh my God! Supposing she stole something! Of one thing she was certain: whatever it was, and whoever the weird woman was, she was a liar. She buried the recognition she had felt under a pile of facts and reality – that reality being that her mother had died a long, long time ago.