‘Well,’ said Hugo, ‘is there anything in the house, perhaps, that might give you a clue?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Willa. ‘I haven’t looked. I’ve signed some papers, but I don’t have a key yet. I think there might be one final document to sign.’
‘You could ask to borrow a key,’ said Hugo. ‘If nobody is contesting the will, it’s probably pretty straightforward.’
‘I guess so,’ said Willa. She hadn’t thought of that. For the past couple of years, she’d sometimes felt she was on autopilot, just moving from one day to the next, doing whatever she was expected to do. She’d relied on Hugo too much, and she’d known it couldn’t go on like that.
But this morning, she had woken feeling rested. And in these last few days she had begun to feel like a different person to the woman who had sat on the park bench in Oxford, with Hugo, remembering their girl. Now she felt a hint, a glimmer, that some of the old Willa might be coming back.
‘I will,’ she said. ‘To be honest, I’m not convinced I need to know who Lillian Brooks was.’ But as the words left her mouth, she realised something was pushing her on. The need for a blood connection, a river that ran through her to her own children. To her daughter.
As the realisation settled around her, Willa said, ‘It would be nice to look in the house again. It’s gorgeous. Well, I think so anyway. You and Hamish would probably think it was a bit dingy and tiny. But Esme would have loved it.’
The word slipped through her lips like water. Esme. It was such a pretty name. So old-fashioned – as everyone had felt the need to tell them at the time, when she and Hugo had decided on it. So beautiful, she thought as she’d held her little Esme in her arms for the first time. How could a mother give that up?
Hugo was silent on the other end of the phone. She wondered what he was thinking. Perhaps he was surprised she’d said Esme’s name so freely. She could feel the rolling, crashing tumble of the waves on the beach frothing through her. She had given everything to mourning Esme, but now she had to divert her grief or it would consume them all. She had lost the woman she once was; that woman had been buried beneath the cold English soil with her child. But the same part of her that had loved her daughter with such vehemence had also delighted in lively conversation with colleagues, in tasting strange foreign foods, in wandering with Kettles through parkland coloured and crunchy with autumn leaves. Her husband and son still needed that person.
‘I’m sure she would have. I’m sure we’ll all love it, darling. If you love it,’ said Hugo.
‘Maybe you should come over here for a week,’ said Willa.
‘I don’t think I can just now. John Layton has asked me to stand in for him at the conference in London next week. Besides, Hamish has made it into Head of the River. There’s a great bunch of boys in the crew. He was going to tell you.’
‘Oh, that’s wonderful, on both counts,’ said Willa. For a moment she felt guilt and a longing to be home.
‘Shall I put him on?’ asked Hugo. ‘He’s studying in his room.’
‘Don’t disturb him. Tell him to call if he feels like a break.’ She watched as the mother of the toddler scooped him up and wrapped him in a towel. She felt a longing to get her feet wet. To explore. ‘I’d better go. I’ll call you when I’ve had time to look at return flights. Maybe I’ll stay a few more days, though,’ she said.
‘Are you really all right, darling? We miss you.’
‘I miss you too. And I’m fine. I really am fine.’ She was surprised to realise that this wasn’t far from the truth.
* * *
Willa turned off the ignition and sat in the car on the empty dirt road, staring at The Old Chapel. A smile pulled at her lips. It was beautiful, and it was hers.
She turned to look into Annabelle’s garden. Under an impressive grove of old elm trees, a floral arch had been constructed. A stout man in work wear was putting out white chairs in rows in front of it, leaving a wide path down the middle. Willa remembered that Annabelle hosted weddings. And today was Saturday, so it would make sense that there was one today. She looked up at the sky and the gathering clouds and hoped it wouldn’t rain, for the sake of the bride.
She walked into the grounds of The Old Chapel and registered the floating calls of birdsong and the distant sound of the ocean. Without stopping to consider the overgrown garden and any wildlife it might be hiding, she skipped up the steps and fitted the key into the door. Ian Enderby had handed over the key with a smile, a bottle of champagne and a large wad of official paperwork.
Inside, the musty chemical smell hit her again. She switched on the light and the bulb threw a weak yellow beam across the room. She looked around for a moment, then took the steep staircase up to the landing. Sunbeams struggled through the dirty panelled windows. Boxes filled every available space. She squatted to avoid the sloped ceiling and pulled the lid off the first carton. Inside were old novels and works of non-fiction. She picked up a faded copy of a book called On Photography by Susan Sontag and flicked through it. The publication date was 1977. Her birth year. She wondered what the author would think of the fact that every single person now carried a camera on their mobile phone. She wondered if Lillian had owned a camera – if there were photographs of her life in one of these boxes.
In the next box she found letters, still in their original envelopes, with faded handwriting across the front. Several were simply addressed to Lillian Brooks, The Old Chapel, Sisters Cove, Tasmania. That had probably been plenty of information for the local postmaster to deliver a letter back then. Perhaps even now. This place was so quiet and quaint. So removed from the bustle of city life.
During the week, Willa had walked the entire perimeter of Sisters Cove, marvelling at its untouched nature. She’d found a circular wooden hut in an overgrown garden above the surf club, housing a tiny café. The owner, a vibrant middle-aged woman with dreadlocks and dressed in a floaty dress and sandals, had sold tea and biscuits, healing crystals and home-made jam. She’d asked Willa which of the houses on the beach she was renting, then provided fifteen minutes of entertaining anecdotes about the house’s owner. She’d then moved on to the village ‘mayor’ – a woman wandering the streets straightening up rubbish bins, cleaning letter boxes and pulling out roadside weeds – and finished up with a description of the problems the locals were facing with a proposed new tourist development in the adjacent bay that she said was going to ruin the vibe of the place. Willa had paid three dollars for a cup of chilli and lime green tea that tasted like arsenic, and walked out feeling strangely refreshed.
She returned her attention to the letters. She was tempted to look inside, but resisted the urge. They were not meant for her. She wondered at her own moral compass – here she was digging through Lillian’s life, yet there were still some boundaries she couldn’t cross. She wondered if they would all be so clear-cut.
In another box were hospital letters and X-rays and medical insurance files. Willa looked through them and saw that Lillian had been diagnosed with breast cancer fifteen years earlier. She’d had a mastectomy, but it had returned in the other breast about three years ago. She thought of all the times doctors had asked her if she had any family history of disease, and all the times she had had to explain that she didn’t know, because she was adopted. Mostly it hadn’t seemed to matter, but now she wondered if it was something she should worry about. She felt uneasy, as if a time bomb might be ticking and she should at least take steps to see if she could defuse it so she didn’t leave Hamish and Hugo without another family member.
In the next box was a collection of small framed photographs. She pulled one out and looked at it. The frame was old-fashioned, an ornately patterned tarnished silver. It was a man in work clothes standing next to a girl in front of a shed. As she replaced it, she noticed another photo, unframed, that was sitting loose in the box. In it, a young woman was standing near an older man in a wheelchair, in front of The Old Chapel. Next to them were a well-dressed middle-aged couple, see
mingly caught in conversation with the man in the wheelchair. The young woman must have been Lillian. She was small and had a lovely open face and a generous mouth. Willa thought of the photo in the newspaper of Lillian aged around sixty in her lifesaver’s outfit. In the features of this young woman, she found the resemblance.
‘Hu-hoo! Hello!’
Willa looked down through the railings of the upper level, into the living room. Annabelle was standing in the doorway, smiling and waving.
‘I saw your car!’ she said.
‘Hello,’ said Willa. She uncrossed her legs and stood up slowly, shaking out the pins and needles that had settled in her foot.
‘Would you like to come across for a cup of tea?’ asked Annabelle.
‘I brought herbal tea bags with me,’ said Willa. ‘And I noticed a kettle here the other day. Why don’t you let me make tea for you?’
‘Oh,’ said Annabelle. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to come across the road? It’s no trouble.’
‘No, I won’t,’ said Willa. ‘I’m just getting started. And I see you’re hosting a wedding today. Is that right? I wouldn’t like to interrupt.’ She began a slow descent of the stairs, still holding the photograph.
‘Piffle,’ said Annabelle. ‘It’s not till four. And my bit’s nearly done anyway. The set-up and cottages. I have waitresses who offer the champagne and hors d’oeuvres after the ceremony. Then the guests all go off to the dinner venue, on a bus usually. It’s easy.’
‘That sounds like a lot of work, still,’ said Willa. In the kitchenette, she rinsed out the kettle, refilled it and flicked it on. ‘Are you sure you won’t join me? I was about to have a quick break, so you’re very welcome.’
‘Oh, all right then,’ said Annabelle. She took a tentative step inside the door, then stopped and looked around. ‘Lillian used to come across to me for tea. There was never room in here, with all the canvases.’
Willa smiled at her. She picked up the photograph from the kitchen bench and showed it to Annabelle. ‘Is that Lillian in the picture?’
Annabelle took a few moments to answer. ‘Yes, with Constance and Andrew. And her dad, Len.’
Willa walked back to the kitchen and opened the cupboards. She found two mismatched mugs and held them up to the dim light of the window, then rubbed at some dust with the edge of her shirt.
‘Andrew… Was that Dan’s uncle who Ian Enderby was talking about the other day?’
‘Yes.’
Willa looked up. ‘He died on the cliffs?’
‘Yes.’
She noticed Annabelle’s face begin to lose its energy. Annabelle’s expression faltered.
‘I’m sorry. How insensitive of me. I was being nosy.’
‘Oh, it’s fine!’ Annabelle held up the photo again and stared at it. ‘He was very charismatic. Very… popular.’
‘Well, I can see he was handsome,’ said Willa. ‘More like a movie star than a farm owner by the looks of that photo.’
‘Yes, that’s probably right,’ said Annabelle. ‘He was a much better lawyer than he was a farmer, I’m told. It was his tractor that caused Len to be in that wheelchair.’
‘Oh? How so?’ asked Willa.
‘A farm accident. Len was the head farmhand at Merrivale then. He rolled the tractor and broke his back. Had a head injury too. There were rumours that the tractor was faulty, or something like that, and that Andrew had refused to fix it. Apparently Lillian didn’t believe it, though. She and her father were both very loyal to Andrew over the whole thing.’
‘What a sad story,’ said Willa.
‘Len was always very stoical, even though he was in constant pain. Not that I knew that back then, but over the years Lillian and I talked about him quite a bit.’ Annabelle put the photograph down on the side table. ‘He was a lovely man, Len.’
‘It feels odd for me to be inviting you in here,’ said Willa after a pause. ‘You’ve obviously been here hundreds of times, even if you didn’t stay for tea.’
‘No,’ said Annabelle. ‘No, I never came in.’ Her hand fluttered to her mouth, then slid down her neck. Her fingers clasped at a silver necklace that looked to have a cross on it. She was staring at the wood fire at the rear of the room. She looked pale, thought Willa. Less energetic than she had the other day.
‘Are you all right?’
Annabelle’s face sprang back to life as she moved her gaze to Willa. ‘Yes! Yes, fine. I have been a bit off colour this week, actually. But apparently there’s nothing wrong with me. Apparently I’m right as rain. Doctors know best, don’t they!’ She walked further into the room and stood in front of the couch.
She’s stressed, thought Willa. Off balance. After their morning tea the other day, Willa had come away sensing something pent-up in Annabelle. Something grating. Today she could feel the same anxious energy, but also warmth and an odd sense of sorrow.
‘Not always,’ said Willa. ‘Sometimes I think doctors are just poking around in the dark, doing their best.’
Annabelle deflated onto the couch.
Willa handed her a mug of tea. She sat opposite, sipping in silence.
‘I had a bit of a hiccup this week. An episode,’ said Annabelle. She was staring down into her lap, then she looked back up, a grave expression on her face. ‘They think it’s anxiety.’
‘Oh?’ said Willa. ‘That sounds worrying.’
‘It was. I thought I was dying,’ said Annabelle. ‘I still don’t really believe that’s what it was. Panic, I mean. I thought I’d been poisoned at first. Then I thought maybe it was a heart attack. That’s how bad I felt.’ There were tears in her eyes.
‘It’s truly awful,’ said Willa. ‘I’ve been there myself.’
‘Really?’
Willa nodded. ‘Did your doctor have any suggestions?’
‘I have to see a psychologist,’ said Annabelle. ‘Apparently these episodes can just come on, just like that. If you’ve got a few worrying things on your mind.’
‘Have you?’ asked Willa.
‘Well, I wouldn’t have said so,’ said Annabelle. ‘The weddings are going all right. I’ve only done a few, but so far so good. Anyway, enough about me. What about you? What have you been looking for up there?’ She gestured to the upper level and smiled widely, and it was as if, thought Willa, looking at her face, she had completely transported herself to a new reality. One where everything was perfect in the world.
‘I’m not sure. I didn’t know Lillian. But I’m hoping to find something to link me to her.’
Annabelle’s eyes were aglow with curiosity. Willa thought about telling her. She didn’t usually talk about it, but sitting here, chatting about her health so openly, Annabelle just seemed sweet and guileless. And she’d already told Annabelle’s niece, so what harm could it do?
‘I do have a link to Tasmania, though.’
‘Oh, how interesting!’ said Annabelle. ‘What is it?’
‘I was born here.’
‘Really?’
‘I was adopted out at birth. Was Lillian ever pregnant, do you know?’
Annabelle’s eyes widened. ‘Pregnant? Yes… but…’ She put down her tea and brought both hands fleetingly to her mouth, then dropped them into her lap.
‘She was? When?’ asked Willa.
‘It couldn’t be you,’ said Annabelle.
‘Why not?’
‘She lost it. I was away, but that’s what I was told. She… lost the baby.’ Annabelle’s face had collapsed.
‘Perhaps she didn’t,’ said Willa carefully. She allowed a few moments to pass, but Annabelle just sat staring at the coffee table. ‘Perhaps that’s what she needed people to think,’ she said a little more gently.
‘No. Lillian wouldn’t have lied like that. She wouldn’t.’
They sat in silence for a minute.
‘We all tell lies,’ said Willa eventually. ‘I told you the other day that I had two children. I let you believe they were both alive. But my daughter died almost two years ago.’
Annabelle looked up, aghast.
‘I find it hard to talk about,’ said Willa. A gigantic mass had wedged itself in her chest as she spoke, making it an effort to breathe. ‘But sometimes you just have to do what it takes. You do the best you can.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Annabelle.
Willa could see that she was genuinely upset.
‘What was her name?’
‘Esme,’ said Willa, and they both sat in silence, letting the name hang between them.
‘Most people try to avoid talking about her to me,’ said Willa. ‘But sometimes I do really want to talk about her. She was such a darling. Sometimes I just want people to know everything about her. She was amazing.’
‘Of course,’ said Annabelle. ‘How dreadful for you. It must be… terrible.’
‘It is. Although sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes I talk to her in my head and I picture her and I laugh at what she would have said back to me. Sometimes it’s wonderful,’ said Willa. ‘On the days I can picture her clearly. Sometimes I can’t tell the difference between good days and bad. They both make me cry.’
‘Oh, my dear,’ said Annabelle sadly. ‘Well, you just go ahead and cry.’
‘Thank you.’ Willa wanted to get up and give Annabelle a hug, which was very unlike her.
‘How old was she?’ asked Annabelle.
‘Fifteen,’ said Willa. ‘Nearly sixteen.’
Annabelle’s eyes pooled with tears. ‘That’s a really hard age.’
‘Yes,’ said Willa.
‘Was she sick?’
‘No.’ She wondered if she could bring herself to speak about it. Sometimes it felt like a betrayal of Esme, but mostly she was just angry and bitter that she hadn’t heard her phone ring that night.
The Daughter's Promise (ARC) Page 10
