Weyward(61)

She woke the next morning to the strong smell of kippers wafting from a tray borne by Nanny Metcalfe.

‘Get these down you,’ she said. ‘Nanny’s orders.’ The fish was yellow and puckered, like the carcass she had once seen of a slow-worm, mummified in the summer heat.

She struggled to sit up and took the tray. Her stomach churned and she shuddered at the memory of the dream.

‘Are you all right, Violet?’ Nanny asked.

‘Fine, thank you,’ she said, bringing a forkful of fish to her mouth. She chewed slowly, and even after she swallowed, the gelatinous sensation lingered on her tongue and on the roof of her mouth.

She managed one more mouthful. Then, the roiling in her stomach intensified, and the room shifted again. She felt a gathering inside her, something pushing up from her stomach and into her oesophagus, the acid sweet in her mouth.

She vomited. Again, and again.

Afterwards, when Nanny Metcalfe had sponged the flecks of vomit from her mouth and helped her change into a clean nightgown, they sat in silence for a while. A crow screamed outside. Violet could see it through the window, a black comma in the blue sky.

Eventually, Nanny Metcalfe spoke.

‘I think we’d better call the doctor,’ she said.





30


KATE


Time passes more quickly, now that Kate’s days are filled by her shifts at the bookshop.

She finds the work soothing – sorting through the boxes of donations, stamping them with the label gun. Mostly, the shop sells Mills & Boon novels (‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ Emily says); though occasionally Kate will unearth a first edition Austen or Alcott. These are displayed in the window, so that their gilt-embossed covers spark in the sun.

She and her boss settle into a comfortable routine, the older woman often bringing her cups of tea and plates of biscuits, chattering easily about her husband Mike, about growing up in Crows Beck. Emily is impressed by Kate’s affinity with her ginger tomcat, Toffee, who – she swears – despises all humans (Emily’s own hands are often patterned with scratches from his eager ministrations).

She is due in December. Kate hopes for snow for the birth. Often, alone in the cottage, she tests names out loud, tasting them on her tongue. Holly, perhaps – a nod to the season. Or maybe Robyn. Though nothing feels quite right, yet.

It is early autumn when she feels the first kick. She is out in the garden, pulling up clumps of tansy from beneath the sycamore – quite a poisonous plant, she’s learned, despite its bright yellow flowers – and listening to the trees murmur in the wind. She gasps at a sudden fluttering movement inside her womb – a liquid feeling that makes her think of quicksilver, or the pale minnows darting in the beck.

Her daughter.

By November, her skin is stretched tight as a drum over her stomach. None of her old clothes fit – she raids Aunt Violet’s wardrobe for loose smocks and tunics; draping herself in pashmina shawls and a battered mackintosh. As it has grown, her hair has become unruly – she’d forgotten its tendency to curl, in all those years of expensive hair treatments. The back is a sort of mullet, now, but Kate doesn’t care. She doesn’t even brush it, these days – just lets it fall in dark waves to her ears.

Simon wouldn’t recognise her.

‘Are you in touch with him?’ asks Emily. ‘The baby’s father, I mean.’

Kate has invited her over for Bonfire Night; they have built a small pyre in the centre of the garden and sit in front of it on camp chairs, gripping mugs of hot chocolate. Kate breathes deeply, savouring the scent of woodsmoke. Above them, the sky is thick with stars.

‘No,’ she says. ‘I haven’t spoken to him for months. It’s … better that way. For the baby. He … isn’t a good person.’

Emily nods. She reaches over, squeezes Kate’s hand.

‘I’m here, you know,’ she says, taking her hand away. ‘If you ever want to talk about anything, you just say the word.’

‘Thank you.’

Kate’s throat narrows. She stares into the fire, watching sparks dance gold into the night. For a while, neither of the women speak. The only sounds are the hiss and crack of the flames and, somewhere, an owl.

She wonders if Emily has guessed the truth. It could be obvious, she supposes, from the way that she flinches when her phone rings, her refusal to talk about her old life in London. About why she left.

But she can’t bring herself to say the words. Not yet. She doesn’t want to risk the delicate threads of their friendship. It’s been so long since she’s spent time with another woman. She hasn’t seen her university friends for years.

The last time was the wedding she and Simon went to, in Oxfordshire. Five years ago now, not long after she’d left her job. Her friend Becky was getting married. She remembers the dress she wore – that Simon picked out for her – pink, the colour of broken flesh, the colour of the scar on her arm. Gold heels she couldn’t walk in. She’d sat across from Simon at the reception, laughed too loudly at the feeble jokes of the man next to her. It was an open bar; Simon was drunk. But he was watching. He was always watching. One of her friends saw him push her into the taxi before the speeches, the practised way his hand gripped the back of her neck. He wouldn’t let her take their calls, afterwards. In the end, her friends had stopped trying.