Weyward(22)

‘So, would you get to see inside a body?’ Violet asked. ‘Learn how it works? If you went to medical school, I mean.’

‘Violet,’ Father frowned. ‘Hardly appropriate table conversation from a young lady.’

Frederick laughed.

‘I don’t mind, Uncle,’ he said. ‘The young lady is right, anyway. To become a doctor, I’d first need to be acquainted with how the human body works. Intimately acquainted.’

He was still watching her.





12


KATE


Kate holds her breath as she dials the number.

Beams of afternoon sunshine pour into the bedroom, catching dust motes. Out of the window, she can see the mountains that ring the valley, purple and distant.

The phone is still ringing. Canada is – she tries to think – five hours behind, so it will be midday there. Her mother will be busy, at her job as a medical receptionist. Perhaps she won’t answer. Kate almost wills it.

Don’t pick up.

‘Hello?’

Her heart sinks.

‘Hi, Mum, it’s me.’

‘Kate? Oh, thank God.’ Her mother’s voice is urgent, harried. She can hear the trill of office phones in the background, faint conversation. ‘Hold on a second.’

A door opens, shuts.

‘Sorry, just had to find somewhere quieter. Where are you calling from? What’s going on?’

‘I’ve got a new phone.’

‘Jesus, Kate, I’ve been going out of my mind. Simon phoned me about an hour ago. He said you’d taken off, left your phone behind.’

Guilt pulls at her.

‘Sorry, I should have called earlier. But listen, I’m fine. I just … had to get away.’

She pauses. Blood rushes in her ears. Part of Kate does want to tell her the truth. About Simon, about the baby. But she can’t seem to shape the words in her mouth; to force them through her lips. To break the glass.

He abused me.

She has already caused her mother so much pain. Even the sound of her voice brings it back – those long days after the accident, when her mother barely left her parents’ bedroom. Coming home from school and finding her grey-faced and sobbing, the bed strewn with her father’s clothes.

‘They still smell like him,’ she had said, before disappearing back into her grief. In that moment, Kate wished she had never been born.

Years later, when her mother married Keith, a Canadian doctor, she had asked Kate to move with them to Toronto. They could start again, she’d said. Together.

Kate had said no, insisted that she wanted to stay in England for university. But really, she just didn’t want to ruin her mother’s second chance at happiness. Their infrequent conversations – eventually dwindling from weekly to monthly – felt stilted, awkward. It was for the best, Kate told herself. Her mother was better off without her.

‘Away from what?’ her mother is asking now. ‘Please, Kate – I’m your mum. Just tell me what’s going on.’

He abused me.

‘It’s – complicated. It just … wasn’t working. So I wanted to get away for a bit.’

‘Right. OK, darling.’ Kate hears the resignation in her voice. ‘So where have you gone, then? Are you staying with a friend?’

‘No – do you remember Dad’s Aunt Violet? The one who lived up in Cumbria, near Orton Hall?’

‘Oh, yes, vaguely. A bit eccentric, I always thought … I didn’t know you’d become close.’

‘We weren’t,’ says Kate. ‘Close, I mean. She’s – dead, actually. She died last year, left me her house. I guess she didn’t have any other family.’

‘You never told me that.’ She hears the wound in her mother’s voice. ‘I should have stayed in touch with her, your dad would have liked that.’

Kate’s insides clench with guilt. This is why it’s better that they don’t speak. She has hurt her mother again, like she always does.

‘Sorry, Mum … I should have said something.’

‘It’s OK. Anyway, how long are you planning to stay up there? You can always come here, you know. Or – maybe I could come there?’

‘You don’t have to do that,’ Kate says quickly. ‘It’s OK. I’m OK. Anyway – sorry again, about Aunt Violet. I should go, Mum. I’ll call you in a few days, OK?’

‘OK, darling.’

‘Wait – Mum?’

‘Yes?’

‘Don’t tell him. Simon. Don’t tell him where I am. Please.’

She hangs up quickly, cutting off her mother’s questions.

Tears blur her vision. She gropes blindly for the box of tissues on the bedside table – perched precariously atop a towering stack of New Scientist magazines – and knocks it over. Items topple onto the floor.

‘Fuck,’ she says, bending down to pick them up. She needs to pull herself together.

Something else has been knocked to the ground – an enamel jewellery box, patterned with butterflies. Its contents are splayed out on the floorboards, glowing in the sun. Mismatched earrings, a couple of rusted rings, a dirty necklace with a battered-looking pendant. Flustered, she puts them back in the box, tidies the surface of the bedside table.