by Helen Fisher
Eddie’s legs gave way not far from where the waves met the sand. He laid Jeanie down, and then lay next to her, his lips touched the ground and when he looked at me, sand coated one side of his face. His wet hair was painted across his face and the whites of his eyes were pink. His teeth were chattering.
My mother’s teeth were chattering too, and there was a pale-blue line around her lips, her wide eyes stared up at me. I kneeled beside her, taking off my jacket to lay over her, even though it was soaking wet.
‘Is this heaven?’ she said, the words chopped into pieces by her involuntary shuddering. Her whole body shook.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Not heaven.’ I looked into her brown eyes. Like Eddie, the sea had turned the whites of her eyes pinkish. Her lashes clumped together, dark and pretty.
‘My guardian angel! Where am I?’
‘You know this woman?’ Eddie said.
Did I know her? Not well enough. All my life I had missed out on her face, her presence, her wisdom, her warmth. And yet here she was, barely older than the last time I’d seen her; still at least ten years younger than me. And so ultimately, it would be the case that I had not really missed one moment of my mother’s life, while she had missed thirty years of mine.
I held Jeanie’s hand and kissed her cheek. I let my face rest against hers and then, when I was ready, I lifted my head and looked at my husband.
‘Yes, I know her,’ I said. He waited, the single, simple line between his brows a tiny sign of profound confusion. I looked down at my mother, and she smiled that smile that was as warm and easy as sun breaking through clouds.
‘This is my mother.’
* * *
I briefly looked back at the sea and saw a few pieces of cardboard drifting off, some as far away as the eye could see, and I knew there was no going back.
Then, not knowing the right questions to ask yet, and not being sure of all the answers anyway, we got up off the sand. The three of us, like human shipwrecks, ascended the cliff. My mother clinging to me in disbelief. The sword of knowing she would never see her little girl again, pierced her. The unique gift of getting to know me now, still a compromise she had yet to come to terms with. Eddie walked behind, a hand on our shoulders, as though we might fall backwards. We climbed, taking our first steps into a new life together. The past only behind us. A life to be lived only forwards.
Epilogue
Summer, 1979
A chest infection wasn’t just a winter occurrence anymore. Jeanie could feel one coming, its early symptoms as distinct as the difference between sea and sky, its progress as predictable a story as any other; the beginning: a subtle rawness between her throat and lungs, which moved lower daily; the middle: an increasing shallowness of breath, pain breathing in, and lack of energy; the end: a cough on which she could get no purchase, until she could finally clear it, hawking up lumps of phlegm as solid as slugs. This was the end she was accustomed to, but she felt sure, it would kill her one day.
It had been eighteen months since Jeanie had seen her guardian angel: the woman that looked like her mother, a mother she could barely remember, who carried the same name and the same ticks and turns of phrase as her daughter. Sometimes Jeanie felt a desperation to find her guardian angel that was overwhelming; she had said as much to her friends: like-minded bohemian-types who she rarely saw these days. She had found a connection in Faye, formed a bond to the older woman; was magnetically drawn to her.
When Faye didn’t return, and the months passed by, Jeanie got on with her life, but never stopped looking, quickened her pace if she saw someone similar from behind, only to be disappointed when she overtook them and turned to see their unfamiliar face. She knew it was foolish to miss – to mourn – a friend she barely knew. Faye had been nearly old enough to be her mother, but maybe that was it, maybe she was the mother-figure that Jeanie had missed out on. Maybe that’s why it hurt so much. And the fantasy that this woman could look after her daughter if anything bad were to happen to Jeanie was never going to be a reality. There was no safety net; she would have to accept that.
It was time for Jeanie to let go of the idea of Faye – she had been happy before, she would be happy again – and concentrate on her daughter; she needed to get well, or her fears of dying young were going to come true, and above all else, she did not want to leave her daughter without a mother. She would never leave her willingly. Ever. God would have to take her.
She gazed at the sleeping form of little Faye, her chest rising and falling gently below the sheets, and kissed her on the forehead.
Jeanie went downstairs and flicked on the kettle, desperate for the hot water to soothe the rasping in her throat and chest, hoping it would warm and melt the infection that was taking hold, dissolve it and leave her body. She leaned on the kitchen counter and absent-mindedly picked up two empty glass jam jars near the window, pinching them between her thumb and finger. She walked them down to the shed. The air was warm already, even though it was still early; it was going to be a beautiful day.
Jeanie opened the shed door, wrestled with it momentarily. These jars would keep for things that don’t belong anywhere else, things that we just don’t know when the time will come for us to need them. She hadn’t been in the shed for ages, perhaps as long as two years, there were a lot of cobwebs and not much else. Jeanie wondered about clearing it completely, cleaning it, painting it and making a Wendy house for her and little Faye, a place to hide, to talk, and play.
There was a box on the floor, might come in handy, although it was a little broken, and beyond it, at the back of the shed, just a mess of tools and other paraphernalia. As she leaned forward to place the jars on a shelf at the back of the shed, she stepped into the box on the floor, and as she did so, the bottom opened up and swallowed her.
Two glass jars hit the floor of the shed, rolled momentarily, clinking as they hit each other, and then stopped.
Jeanie hurtled through the darkness like a bullet, until she could see something: water? Grey water. She couldn’t breathe, and as she hit the ocean like a torpedo, she threw her head above the waves and took a breath as deep as her lungs would allow.
Acknowledgements
It’s difficult to know where the beginning really is but, as best I can, I’d like to do this in chronological order. I’d like to thank my parents, Patricia Steele and Norman Graupp, for starting things off.
Thank you to Sarah Geileskey for our wonderful conversation in the early stages, which helped me create the character of Eddie. Next, three friends who read my story as I was writing it – a few chapters at a time – and told me they liked it. For their support, feedback and patience, I give my deepest thanks to Patrick Doyle, Adam Schiller and Amy Schiller. Thank you to Sharon Zink for your professional feedback.
When I was sick of rejections and put my manuscript in a drawer and cried myself to sleep until I came to terms with never getting published, I got a message from a friend who encouraged me to send it to one more agent. Without that nudge I may have left it locked away, so thank you Sarah Whyand. That ‘one more agent’ was Judith Murray, who is the character everyone loves from a novel, the fairy godmother in the story of my own life: thank you for getting me to the ball.
Thank you to Jo Dickinson and Jackie Cantor at Simon & Schuster for your moving, emotional response to my novel. Thank you to Kate Rizzo for all your work in selling the foreign rights, and Alisa Ahmed for all your help.
I thank my children for believing that I would get published just because I’m their mum, and who prayed to the universe – and everything in it – when I promised to buy them a kitten if I got a publisher.
And I thank you for picking up this book. I hope you feel that reading it is time well spent.
There are a lot of people that help take a story and turn it into a book and get it out there. I didn’t know about all of them until recently, but here they are, all much appreciated. Some made me laugh and were personally supportive, and some I’ve never met – not even
virtually – but to whom I am extremely thankful.
In the UK: Jess Barratt, Hayley McMullan, Polly Osborn, Rich Vlietstra and all the marketing and publicity team; Maddie Allan, Dominic Brendon, Rich Hawton, Gill Richardson, Joe Roche, Katrina Scott, and all the sales team; Pip Watkins for the UK cover; Judith Long and Alice Rodgers in editorial; Francesca Sironi in production; Suzanne Baboneau, Ian Chapman and Clare Hey. Thank you all.
In the US: Aimee Bell, Jen Bergstrom, Jenny Carrow (for the US cover art), Carolyn Reidy, Allison Green, Molly Gregory, Eliza Hanson, Jen Long, Lisa Litwack, Sally Marvin, Caroline Pallotta, Jaime Putorti, Jamie Selzer, and Abby Zidle. Thank you all.
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First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2021
Copyright © Spacehopper Limited, 2021
The right of Helen Fisher to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4711-8866-4
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4711-8867-1
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4711-8868-8
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
