Another Life

by Sara MacDonald

  Gabby woke screaming, clamped a hand over her mouth. Terrified she switched the lamp on by her bed. It was two o’clock in the morning. Her heart was racing. She sat up trying to calm herself. She was drowning. How Freudian, she thought, and got heavily out of bed.

  She made tea and thought about the wisdom of staying with Nell, going back to the farm, and yet she was reluctant to return to London.

  She could not sleep again and lay listening to the radio until the birds started singing, then she pulled a jacket over her nightdress and went out to watch the sunrise. She walked carefully on the cobbles, in case she disturbed John, and round into the garden. She sat shivering slightly on an old wooden bench watching the sun come up over the trees. There were shadows across the lawn and she thought she could hear a baby cry but when she listened there was nothing.

  She moved down the garden to the trees, for behind them the sun would rise up above the sea. She walked through the little gate at the bottom and onto the disputed land. It was the most glorious golden sunrise and Gabby shivered for the wonder of it in a garden alone. She placed her hands over her stomach and thought of Mark. How close he seemed.

  She went back inside and brought her toast back out. A little gaggle of cheerful volunteers had arrived and were strimming the overgrown land beyond the garden. John came out with his coffee.

  ‘Sorry, Gabby, did they wake you?’

  Gabby smiled. ‘I’ve been up for hours. I watched the sun rise.’

  ‘Good heavens … It is a glorious morning, though.’

  There was a cry from the field and all strimming stopped.

  ‘Oh, Lord,’ John said, ‘I hope no one has cut their toes off. I’d better go and look.’

  He disappeared behind the shrubs and Gabby lifted her face to the early sun.

  ‘Gabby! Come and look! Just come and look at this!’ John called, excitement making his voice quiver.

  Gabby got up and moved as quickly as she could over the grass. John was poking about, clearing something with the help of some of the boys.

  ‘Gabby, look, look what this youngster found.’

  Gabby bent awkwardly down. She saw an edge of granite and then under the pulled-back grass, so thick it was like a carpet, she saw two small gravestones.

  She knelt next to John who was still pulling the vegetation away and felt herself start to shake with excitement. Two small graves, side by side.

  Tom Welland

  Died at Sea

  NFL 1867

  Home to Rest

  1889

  My Mother

  Isabella Vyvyan

  Died At Sea

  NFL 1867

  Buried here

  Summer House

  1889

  John beamed at her. ‘Who is to say this is not consecrated ground now?’

  Gabby grinned back and got to her feet, dizzy with excitement, and stepped back onto a fallen branch grown slippery with lichen. She lost her balance, put out her hand to save herself, but landed heavily. John was beside her in a second.

  ‘Gabby! Oh, my dear! Are you all right?’

  Gabby lay for a moment in the wet grass, her hands on her stomach, frightened for her baby, then slowly she sat up and John and the volunteer leader helped her to her feet.

  ‘Oh, Gabby, Gabby, I shouldn’t have called you like that …’

  ‘John, rubbish! You didn’t put the log there!’ She smiled at his worried face. ‘John, I’m fine. I’ll go and lie down for a bit.’

  ‘Now, you are sure? Should I call a doctor?’

  ‘No, John. I’m quite sure. Go and finish your breakfast.’

  ‘I’ll check on you in an hour. Buzz if you need me.’

  Gabby lay carefully on the bed and breathed slowly.

  Mark. We found her, your Isabella. We found her, and you were part of her story, and of mine, too.

  After a few minutes, Gabby felt suddenly compelled to go over to the museum. She stood in front of Isabella. The newly risen sun flowed in through the windows at an angle and cast a shaft of light across Isabella’s face.

  ‘Thank you, Isabella,’ Gabby whispered, ‘for showing us the end of your story.’

  She stood for a long time looking up at her face and suddenly out of nowhere came the picture of a tall dark man standing in front of a garden containing washed-up treasures and debris from the sea. What had drawn Mark subconsciously to visit the house of his childhood, a place he could hardly remember? What shadows and echoes had drawn him back there?

  Isabella looked steadily down, giving nothing away. Yet her expression seemed to change with the light, seemed suddenly at peace.

  Gabby looked down at her right arm, so badly copied it did not meet the lily.

  I will come and fix that, Isabella, I will make you perfect.

  The air moved suddenly; changed. The arc of sun slid lower across Isabella’s face and away. Her face was in shadow again and Gabby knew at once that Isabella did not want to become perfect again. She needed to stay as she was, flawed and imperfect.

  Gabby went closer and smiled. Isabella had the face of an angel, but she had been a woman with all the vanity and selfishness and needs of a human being.

  Her work here was finished and Gabby reached up to touch the face one last time. As she did so a sharp pain started up in her back, making her gasp.

  Nell sat on the edge of the hospital bed. ‘Honestly, Gab, what were you doing trotting about in your nightdress, uncovering buried graves, in the half-light?’

  ‘I’m fine, Nell. They are only keeping me in as a precaution, but I did give poor John a fright.’

  ‘Well, there is no way I am letting you out of my sight when they let you out. You are coming to me until the baby is born. You are too precious, Gabby.’

  ‘Nell, I won’t put up a fight, thank you. But, I don’t want to hurt Charlie. It is not that it would be difficult to come back to the farm, it is just I don’t know that I would be doing it for the right reasons. I’m scared that I would be returning to Charlie just to feel safe and because you are there. Do you see?’

  ‘Yes, I do. Leave it for now. Just let things unfold or resolve in their own way. Concentrate on that baby of yours. I’ll come back later. I’ll go and get your room ready, air your bed.’

  ‘Nell, don’t come back, it’s too far. I’ll ring you tonight. I’ll be out by tomorrow.’ But she wasn’t.

  It was a long and painful birth. Josh had been so easy, but then she had been so much younger then …

  Gabby was so, so, tired.

  ‘Come on, dearie, you are nearly there …’

  And then it was over. There was silence for a second, then the baby gave a croaky little cry. Gabby relaxed, closed her eyes.

  ‘What is it?’ she whispered.

  ‘A little girl. A beautiful little girl.’

  ‘Is she all right?’ Gabby asked, hearing a little flurry of activity in the corner and lowered voices.

  There was silence, the atmosphere in the room changed.

  ‘What’s happening?’ she called out, turning to look. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Your baby is fine, Gabrielle. Absolutely fine. We’ll need to pop her into an incubator for a few hours, because she’s premature, but nothing to worry about …’

  The nurse was swaddling her and then brought her to Gabby, smiling, but watching Gabby’s face. ‘Here she is, isn’t she a little beauty?’

  Gabby looked down. Her daughter was tiny with tufts of dark hair. She understood the sudden silence in the room for the baby had skin the colour of dark coffee. Gabby unfolded the minute fingers like spider crabs and was suffused with love and a sense of wonder. This is the missing part of Mark. The piece he was looking for. The part I hold.

  Chapter 83

  Mark watched the clouds floating past the small square of window. Utterly beautiful. Great white cumuli, peaked and pure as icing sugar. Naimah next.

  Oh Gabriella, how far away you seem, how far away, and yet I feel you everywhere I mov
e.

  He closed his eyes. They ached and pricked with tiredness and guilt. The plane gave a small lurch and the seat-belt light came on and a cheerful voice warned of a bumpy ride ahead. He saw again the startled look in Nereh’s eyes. Disbelief.

  ‘So, Dad, when are you thinking of telling Maman?’

  A father who has feet of clay after all.

  The plane lurched, bumped again and then dropped. Mark opened his eyes and looked out. The pilot had dropped to try and avoid the weather but this sudden dark storm did not look good. There were murmurings from the other passengers and the stewardess, smiling, brought round plates of sweets.

  Mark closed his eyes again. He wanted to get back to snow. It calmed him, made a division and a diversion between these difficult weeks before he could get on a plane to the house by the river, to the woman he loved.

  He smiled; he had found an old copy of Peter Nero’s version of The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and he had posted it to Gabby.

  The plane seemed to give a shudder and the pilot came on, less cheerful this time.

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, we are experiencing some bad weather. Please keep your seat-belts on. We have a bumpy ride for the next few minutes. This is nothing to worry about …’

  The small plane was tossed sideways. A girl screamed and a child cried and was hushed. Out on the wing Mark saw ice glitter and heard an engine cough. The woman beside him started to pray, her rosary moving fast and practised through her fingers.

  The sky was darkening. Lightning flashed ahead and inside the plane all was suddenly quiet. Something stirred on the edge of Mark’s memory and he eagerly moved towards it. This … thing that had eluded him all his life. He was dimly aware of the pilot asking everyone to pull their seats up and get into the emergency position and not to panic. The cabin staff rapidly checked the babies and small children.

  He did not want to lose this, this answer, this clue to what he is.

  The plane was tossed like a kite. It strained and creaked like a damaged animal and out of nowhere Mark heard this incredible sound. Deep, breathy sounds that made a rhythm so familiar the hairs stood out on his arms and on the back of his neck.

  He saw two women facing each other, muffled up in coats and fur. One hand touched the upper arm of the other as if for balance. Their faces and mouths were very close and they were making this amazing sound deep in the back of their throats. One led, the other responded. They swayed gently, their lips almost touching, one using the other’s mouth cavity as a resonator.

  The words appeared meaningless to Mark and yet he understood them as he understood the snow and the space and what fills each. It was all a part of him and he leant closer to glimpse the face of the woman he knew was his mother. He wanted to laugh. She was throat-singing, controlling her breath in a vocal game with her friend. On the sounds went; a story, a cry of a bird, a name.

  She turned, this forgotten woman, and Mark saw how young she was. How young. Remembered how he was taken from her as harshly as she was taken from her own kind. Plucked from her frozen body in a lonely house she hated.

  Her eyes held his. She smiled and he remembered with sadness the warmth of her body as they slept wrapped together on cold nights, when she would make this sound to herself, this throaty, comforting echo in the lonely dark of night.

  The pilot lost control and the nose of the plane dived. The screams were loud in his ears. Mark thought, how strange to remember who you are, the small piece that has always been missing, in the moment of death.

  I am Inuk, which means person. I am Inuk.

  Chapter 84

  Wildflowers clustered in purple clumps on the cliffs. Away, down in the cove, oyster catchers swooped and called on the wet sand.

  Gabby had parked her car by the gate to the cottage where Elan once lived, and walked along the coastal path wanting to approach the farm from the sea.

  It was odd; in her mind, the top field was still a great expanse of verdant green, and scarlet poppies grew among the weeds and clustered under the hedge. Rabbits still scurried away from the openness of a huge space where a bird of prey could swoop at any time, clean and straight and deadly, spoiling the rural bliss she hung on to, but which no longer existed. For houses had spread like a rash, inland.

  She walked on until she stood at the head of the valley looking down on the farmhouse. The day was still and trapped and Gabby stood and leant against the gate. A butterfly came and landed on her hand, one antenna seeking the sweat above her veins.

  Gabby was seized, enveloped by memories so intimate, so violently visceral that she gasped and closed her eyes. She could so easily believe she was young again, content with her lot, filling the space she was in because she knew no other. Each day filled with the farm. With Charlie, Josh, Nell. With Shadow, now dead, the bantams that followed her round the farmyard … Milly, Virginia, Agatha … speeding towards her, their heads poked forward, running like greedy old ladies, making Josh howl with laughter.

  Had she known she was content? Did she realize, then, what she had?

  Nell’s words came back. Filled her throat with the sweet ache of remembrance.

  ‘My dear Gabby, you were sleepwalking. Contentment means no highs or lows. Just that equitable middle way, conscious of how lucky we are, how much we have, yet acutely aware at the approach of a stranger, when the heart gives that terrifying leap of recognition, of how much we have missed. That exciting chance to explore the height and depths of a life we might have led.’

  Nell, her face transformed and alight with the memory of someone other than her husband. Gabby remembered the shock of realizing that Nell too had been a sleepwalker in her own life, wedded to the farm, the seasons, her family, while her face turned in her dreams to the open window and the breeze from the sea and the stars glittering over the fields into infinity. There, a quite different life unfolded in Nell’s mind. A sweet interior life no one could spoil, unravelling like an endless story no one guessed at. Nell, making a success of the life she had, and smiling and giving and being.

  The call had come when Gabby was wheeling a trolley through Gatwick with her daughter sitting on top of the luggage. They had just disembarked off a flight from Canada.

  Lucinda, walking just behind Gabby, had heard her cry out, ‘Oh, God, no, Charlie!’

  ‘It just seems to be taking hold so fast … Gabby, she watches the door for you …’ Charlie’s voice had faltered.

  ‘I’m on my way, Charlie. I’m at Gatwick. If I can get a flight to Newquay, can you meet me?’

  ‘Of course. I’ve rung Josh.’

  ‘I’ll ring you back. Charlie, will you tell her I’m on my way? Where is she?’

  ‘She’s still at home at the moment. She’s had Macmillan nurses for the last week …’

  Oh, Nell, Nell. ‘Charlie, I’ll be there as quick as I can.’

  ‘I’ll go and tell her.’

  ‘Lucinda, I’ve got to get down to Cornwall … I’ve got to catch a local flight …’

  ‘OK, let’s find a desk or someone who can help us. I’ll take Issy.’

  There had been a cancellation and Gabby had taken the last seat on the flight just leaving.

  ‘Thank you, God,’ she had whispered. ‘Thank you, Lucinda.’

  She had run leaving her daughter and luggage in a pool behind her.

  By the time Gabby had got to Newquay, Nell had been transferred to the hospice and Charlie had driven her straight there.

  ‘She knows you’re coming. They are trying to control the pain. She’s been hanging on for you.’

  Charlie had looked pale and drawn and Gabby dared not touch him.

  He had said, after a while, ‘Nell told me it was your money that saved the herd. She said you didn’t want me to know. It tipped the balance. I would have lost them otherwise. It was generous. I’ll pay you back when I can.’

  ‘Charlie, there’s no need. It came out of the blue from an aunt. I know you and Nell had an awful time and it was something I reall
y wanted to do.’

  The package with the American stamps on it had been posted to her in London. Aunt Bella had died, too, and her solicitor had forwarded it on. It had lain addressed to Gabby for months.

  ‘We got off lightly compared to farmers who did have foot and mouth or whose herds were slaughtered,’ Charlie had said. ‘But of course I couldn’t move or sell and it’s taken us a long time to recover.’

  Nell had been watching the door when Gabby arrived.

  ‘Gabby!’ she cried.

  How small Nell was. How small and impossibly old. Gabby had rushed over and there was so little for her to hold.

  ‘Nell, darling, I’m very cross with you. You should have told me. That’s why you had an appointment in London in the summer, wasn’t it? Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘For the same reason I didn’t tell Charlie. You would have both fussed and wanted me to take treatment. I wanted to enjoy these last months with you all … Now, sit down, I’m longing to hear all your news.’

  A nun had brought her a cup of coffee, but when she turned to Nell again she was asleep.

  ‘Morphine.’ The nun had smiled at Gabby. ‘She’s comfortable, we’ve managed her pain. She will slip in and out of sleep … If you need us, ring the bell.’

  There were two other women in the room and two empty beds, just vacated or just waiting to be occupied. The room was bright with light curtains. Outside there was a garden and beyond a huge chestnut tree, the leaves turning a glorious red.

  Gabby laid her cheek on the old leather armchair and watched Nell sleep. Her breathing was so shallow she seemed not to breathe at all. Nell. Something momentous and heavy had pressed down on Gabby’s chest.

  There was no preparation for losing the most important person in your life. She had closed her eyes and in the peace of the buttery yellow room, she slept.

  When she woke, Nell had been propped up on the pillows like a small bird and was watching her.

  ‘Oh, God! How long have I slept? Was I snoring?’