The Death of Mrs. Westaway(74)
In a quiet corner beside the coffee stand she pulled out her phone, and was about to open up the app, when she saw an unread text message from Harding.
Dear Harriet, it read, a little stiffly, after consultation with Mr Treswick, we would like to advance you your fare back to Trepassen, as the travel is necessary to sort out estate business. I enclose a code for a prepaid ticket that should function at any of the machines at Brighton. Please call me if there are any problems. Uncle Harding. PS Abel will meet you at Penzance.
As Hal closed down the message she had the strangest feeling—a mixture of warmth and suffocation. It felt as though a snug scarf were being wrapped around her stiff and unwilling body, but just a little too tightly.
Remember who you are, she thought, knowing she should have been typing an effusive thank-you text. Remember that meek, grateful little mouse of a niece.
But as the reality of her own past began to clash with the fiction she had created, it was becoming harder and harder to maintain that role. Harder and harder not to slip up. Was she crazy to go back?
As the train sped west, the sky darkening all the time, Hal knew she should have been reading, researching, googling names, preparing to plunge herself back into her part. There was so much she needed to know. Had Maud got to Oxford? What had happened to her after that?
But somehow she could not find the will. She let her head rest against the scratched glass of the window, and stared out at the countryside flashing past. It was cold, and getting colder as they left London and passed into the countryside, the bare trees rimed with frost, the grass white, and puddles black with ice. On any other day Hal would have found it beautiful, but today all she could think about was everything she had left behind and that, perhaps, she would never see again—the flat where she had grown up, all of her past. She was moving forwards now, with every mile the train covered, forwards into an unknown future, her only belongings the case of clothes and papers at her side.
But she was also going back, into her own past—and of all the unanswered questions that jostled at the back of her mind, there was one in particular that Hal kept returning to, poking and prodding with increasing unease, like a tongue returning again and again to a sore tooth.
Why had her mother lied?
The diary, everything in it, that was clear enough. Maggie could not tell her aunt the identity of her baby’s father, and risk never seeing him again.
But why had she lied to Hal herself?
Hal had been turning the question over and over in her head with increasing urgency, but she could think of only one reason—to protect her.
But from what?
It was dark when the train pulled into Penzance, and Hal was almost asleep, but she roused herself and picked up her case, feeling the weight of all the extra clothes and papers she had crammed into it. As she stepped off the train onto the platform, she had the strangest sense of déjà vu, mixed with the unsettling realization of how far everything had changed. There was the station platform, with the big clock and the echoing announcements, and there she was herself, with her torn jeans and shabby hand-me-down case, and her hair falling in her eyes.
But there too was Abel, standing on the platform, looking up at the arrivals board, and when he saw Hal standing on the other side of the barrier his face broke into a smile, and he waved his car keys in the air.
When Hal was through the barrier she found herself engulfed in a completely unexpected hug, and then Abel released her, and grinned, his tanned face creasing into lines of relief.
“Harriet! It’s so good to see you. You gave everyone quite a fright. We’d barely got used to having you around and then—well.” He broke off, his face twisting in a rueful smile. “Let’s just say, it’s good to know you’re okay.”
“I’m sorry.” Hal found herself studying his face from the side as they walked slowly up the platform. Do you know my father? she wanted to ask. Is he Edward? But the words were unthinkable. “I didn’t mean to make everyone worry. And I’m sorry my train was delayed.” She glanced up at the clock. Nearly half past nine. The train had been supposed to arrive at eight thirty. “Were you waiting long?”
Abel shook his head.
“Awhile, but don’t worry. To be honest, I was glad of the excuse to get out—I had a surprisingly good coffee in the station café. I’m not sure I could have taken another one of Mrs. Warren’s cups of gray dishwater.”
In the station light, Abel’s eyes were uncompromisingly gray themselves, but Hal couldn’t stop herself checking again when they reached the car park, trying to make out their color beneath the floodlights as Abel paused to unlock a sleek black Audi.
He caught her staring, and Hal flushed and looked down.
“Something on my chin?” he asked, with a laugh. Hal shook her head.
“I’m sorry. No—it’s just, I . . .” She swallowed and felt her cheeks flush. “I’m still trying to get used to the idea that I have all this family. It’s so hard to compute.”
“I can only imagine,” Abel said lightly. “We’re finding it a bit of an adjustment ourselves, and there’s only one of you. It must be ten times stranger for you, finding a whole family you never knew.” He opened Hal’s door and took her case, before shutting her inside. When he came round to the driver’s side, he shut the door, turning out the internal light and throwing everything into shadows, illuminated only by the green glow of the dashboard.