The Things You Didn't See(74)
‘Dad will be resting and Daniel will be upstairs, meditating. It’s what he does when he’s agitated and that scene with Alfie Avon really shook him. That’s why I told him to leave; I knew that was the safest thing.’
‘He has quite a temper, doesn’t he?’ Holly said, pushing the conversation back to where her interest really lay.
‘Alfie Avon provoked him – he never usually loses his cool. He takes everything on, and tries to fix it. Daniel thinks he can heal the world, but this is outside of his control.’
‘I suppose everyone deals differently with trauma.’
Cass finished her drink and looked at Holly coldly. ‘Please don’t try to suggest Daniel has anything to do with the shooting, Holly. You’re my friend, and you’ve been the only one who believed me when I said Mum didn’t shoot herself. I want us to help each other, but please don’t turn on my man. Ash is the guilty one, not Daniel.’
DAY 11
TUESDAY 11 NOVEMBER
34
Cassandra
Stepping from my shower, I catch my reflection in the mirror, the dark bruises under my eyes. Oh, Mum, what’s happened to me?
Thank God for the Prozac, for that medicinal veil that covers all my emotions. Despite it, every feeling I’ve had since that Friday, the betrayal and anger and confusion, it’s all there in lines around my mouth and the deep shadows under my eyes. I look tired and faded, the events of the past week etched on my skin like worry and not wisdom. I try to fix it: rub in concealer, blush my cheeks bronze, paint my lips pink, and tell my smoothed reflection that from now on things will be different.
Yawning, exhausted to my bones even though I’ve just woken, I go downstairs to the kitchen. There, on the table, all along the kitchen tops, are trays and plates of cakes, cool to the touch and ready to be iced. Oh God, not again. I wrack my brains, and locate a dull memory of coming downstairs in the night with a furious need to do something.
You taught me to cook, Mum, and muscle memory must have kicked in as I sleepwalked, because here are cakes of my childhood: buns, flapjacks, scones. I’d forgotten I even had the ingredients – the flour and sugar have been at the back of the larder for months.
The dream comes back in a fuller form. I dreamt I was a girl again: you were here too, flouring the kitchen top, rubbing butter between my fingers, the warm smell of sugar and fat. You let me lick the spoon afterwards, the floury prints on the bosom of your apron from where you’d lifted me down from the stool. How impatient I’d been to open the oven, to taste the too-hot cakes, but you warned me I’d only get burned. Just a dream, but here are the cakes as if to prove it was real.
‘Tori!’ Daniel calls, as he comes down the stairs. ‘Time you got up! It’s not healthy to get more than seven hours’ sleep.’
He brings a masculine, woody smell into the kitchen, hair damp from the shower, buttoning his designer polo shirt, but not all the way. He kisses me on the lips, then notices the baking. An intake of breath, then he forces a smile.
‘Wow, Cass. Are you opening a cake shop?’
‘I couldn’t sleep so I cooked all Victoria’s favourites. I thought I’d take some to the hospital, as a thank you for what they did for Mum . . .’
He rubs my shoulder and I lean into him, his delicious smell, and want to weep. How could he have betrayed me, when I love him so much? It isn’t fair . . .
‘The cakes look delicious. I’m sure we can give some to the neighbours.’
I know that concerned look, that careful tone, and it chills my blood: he thinks I need treatment. Last time I felt this unstable, I ended up being sectioned. Last time I became suspicious about all the calls he had been taking, all the money missing from our bank account, and I became convinced that he had a lover. He said that the calls were clients, that the money was spent on the gym. He convinced me that I was paranoid; that I was sick, not seeing straight. Now, the same thing is happening again: frequent calls, unexplained absences. But this time I’m certain I’m right: I even know her name. Monica.
I hear light steps on the stairs, then Victoria is in the room, wide-eyed at the cakes. ‘Oh yum!’ She reaches for a bun, saying with a mouthful, ‘This is so good.’
Daniel’s eyes turn stony. ‘Not very healthy though, so just have one, please. Why don’t you go and get dressed, Cass? And take off some of that make-up. You look like a clown.’
After I’ve sorted myself out, the day gets moving, as it will do. Daniel goes to work, and Victoria promises to do schoolwork and not spend the entire morning watching Netflix. Dad wants to go to the farm. He was only away from the land a few days, but that’s still more than ever before, though I understand that he wants to be at home to grieve. He’s desperate to be back in a place he belongs after being in a hospital, a prison – places where he’s a fish out of water – though he could wind up in either after the trial. I agree to drive him as his medication means he can’t operate machinery. I also want to go to the farm, maybe there’s evidence there, something that will directly implicate Ash.
Dad is silent the entire journey. There’s discomfort between us as if words can’t bridge the gap caused by your death, so the eight-minute trip seems much longer. When I’m parked, we both stare up at the farmhouse, as if it might have something to say about all that’s happened. But the farm keeps its own counsel: it knows it will outlast us all, in some form or another.