‘So… that’s it,’ I finally finished.
Mum burst out laughing. ‘Is this a joke?’
My mouth went dry. No, no, it wasn’t, I’d spent so long thinking it all through.
‘Is it some sort of weird birthday entertainment?’ she continued, ‘because no one in their right mind, contemplating such a job, would expect the support of parents who’d put them through the best private schooling; who’d ferried them to enriching hobby clubs; who’d taught them everything they’d need to know about manners and society to fit in…’
‘I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in my life.’ Dad paced up and down. ‘This just doesn’t make sense. Tattooing a career?’ He studied me for a moment. ‘Are you on drugs, Elizabeth? Is that it? Because if you are, look love, we’re here to help…’
They weren’t impressed with the business, the life-plan I’d spent hours refining?
‘Of course it’s not going to happen,’ said Dad. ‘We won’t allow it. You’ll move back home for the rest of this academic year and it goes without saying you can stop seeing this young man. You’ll thank us when you’re older and look back with embarrassment.’
‘Thank you?’
‘I’d keep quiet if I was you,’ Aunt Fiona said, the tension in my chest building as she spoke. ‘All that extra tuition and the educational holidays… Your mum sacrificed getting ahead quicker at work to be here when you got in from school and—’
‘I never begrudged that,’ said Mum and for a second I got a glimpse of the woman I used to feel so close to.
‘So why was I so totally unprepared for life at university?’
‘What do you mean?’ Mum asked and folded her arms around herself.
I wanted them to understand but could already see distress on their faces.
‘Nothing. Ash and I are going. Let’s speak during the week.’
‘No, I want to know. No one could have been more prepared than you. We made sure of it.’
‘Maybe on paper. I got three As so academically I qualified to live as a student.’
My parents looked confused. It was all too much. I went into the hallway, the discussion was getting nowhere. The others followed.
‘What else did you need?’ asked Dad.
‘Just leave her, Lawrence. I don’t think even Elizabeth knows what she’s saying,’ said Aunt Fiona. ‘She’s just attention-seeking. What a disappointment.’
I spun around. Aunt Fiona had never really liked me; I’d sensed it over the years. I’d tried to ignore it but it had never been clearer than at this minute.
‘You really want to know what I was lacking? Life experience, independence, an ability to do things for myself. I wasn’t used to alcohol or staying out late or handling myself in clubs. I didn’t have a taxi or takeout app like all my friends. I struggled to plan my study because you’d always insisted on doing it for me. The girl in the room next to me could rewire a plug and on the other side Heidi put up shelves. The majority had already had Saturday jobs and were used to managing money and dealing with strangers and adults of all ages. I hadn’t got a clue.’
‘Come on, let’s go Lizzie, I think it’s best that we leave,’ said Ash. ‘We – or you – can come back tomorrow. Let the dust settle.’
‘No, they need to hear me out. They’ve insulted you and are still treating me like a small child. Isn’t the whole point of parenting to produce independent offspring? Yet even now, in my second year, you are trying to control my life and make decisions for me. How do you ever expect me to stand on my own two feet?’
‘We wanted, we want, what’s best for you,’ said Mum and looked at Dad.
‘But did it never occur to you that what you thought was best for me was only your opinion and not necessarily the truth? Doesn’t being happy count for anything? Is it all about mortgages and pensions and fitting in? Or is it about following your passion and talent, whatever that might be? I didn’t even like sleeping on my own, for fuck’s sake. You’d never once left me in the house on my own.’
‘There’s no need to swear,’ Dad snapped.
‘Why? Don’t you ever? I was eighteen, Dad. Why couldn’t I get drunk in the Sixth Form and have boyfriends or get a bad perm, or clothes I’d one day look back at and laugh over?’
‘But you had a great childhood, didn’t you?’ Mum’s voice faltered. Guests had come down and clearly wanted to leave but were stuck with their coats in an awkward place between us and the kitchen.
‘I did, Mum.’ My voice softened. ‘Child being the operative word, but once I started going through high school, I became a young woman yet you and Dad never acknowledged that. Why not? Why haven’t you ever trusted me to… to do things on my own?’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ she mumbled.
‘I wish I’d had a mother like yours, you don’t know how lucky you are,’ said Aunt Fiona. ‘You owe your parents an apology.’
‘Everything I’ve said is true.’ I slipped an arm around Ash’s waist as my eyes filled. ‘You imply Ash isn’t a good man, Dad, but what sort of man orders his twenty-year-old daughter to move back home and drop her boyfriend? Does that really seem normal? And Mum, a young woman experimenting with her hair and fashion, isn’t that to be expected – encouraged even? To find her own identity? What sort of mother wants to take charge of that?’
‘I can’t believe how ungrateful you’re being.’ Her fingers flew to her mouth.
Dad rushed to Mum’s side. She looked unsteady and her face drained of colour.
‘I’m not. Mum… Dad… I love you both so much and you’ve always been so caring, I don’t want to upset you, it’s just—’
‘You’re the failure, not us,’ she spat. Mum reached for the cut-glass rose and thrust it towards me. ‘Take this back. Leave now.’
‘Please, I know you don’t mean that.’ Mum’s party had been going so well and then all of a sudden… I didn’t understand…
‘Anne, don’t upset yourself,’ said Dad, ‘we can—’
She pushed it into my hands but I wasn’t ready. It fell and smashed.
A look of desperation crossed Dad’s face. Quickly Ash slipped his arm around my shoulders and steered me into the hallway and out of the front door.
18
Now
In recent years the Met Police have relaxed their policy on officers being banned from having visible tattoos on their hands or face
‘Lizzie, Lizzie wait!’
I stopped and turned. ‘Trish?’
‘I can see you’re in a hurry, so I won’t—’
‘I’ve left Taz, the kitten I’m fostering, longer than usual.’ And I was keen to get changed into shorts. Wearing jeans had been a mistake today.
A tapestry handbag slid down her shoulder. ‘I- I wanted to say sorry.’ She plunged her hands deep into her dungaree pockets and stared at her feet.
‘What for?’
‘I must have seemed a little unfriendly at the party.’
I hesitated. ‘It’s okay. I know you’ve had a difficult time.’
She looked up and gave a wry smile. ‘It’s as if the buildings can speak to each other in this village. Personal news just seems to spread like fire during… well, I wouldn’t exactly call it The Plague…’
I looked at my watch. ‘Sorry, but I really need to get going.’
She hovered.
‘Trish… how about… do you fancy a coffee?’
‘What, now?’
I shrugged.
‘At Streamside Cottage?’
‘Or we could meet tomorrow.’
‘Yes. Yes, we could. Although…’ She took a deep breath and pulled up her bag. ‘Thank you. I could do with a caffeine hit. It’s been a busy afternoon for me what with the school exam season upon us.’
We walked at a quick pace, chatting about the residents I’d got to know. She said what a lovely boy Ben had been, polite and helpful like now, a child who told the funniest jokes and was always happy to chat to adults. My stomach flutter
ed as I thought about him and how he just seemed to be there at the moments it counted. But more than that, Ben made me feel at ease with myself and my new surroundings, and it was becoming increasingly hard to ignore the way his mouth tilted when he smiled and how that made me want to kiss him. I never thought I’d feel like that about another man but somehow Ben made me look forward to the time we spent together. Also we’d friended each other on Facebook and I’d been struck by how real his feed was. There were no selfies showing off about his latest meal or night out, he wasn’t posting to impress – instead I saw countryside views, occasionally one of his photos, heart-warming videos about acts of charity and group photos of him and his colleagues celebrating someone’s birthday or retirement.
As we approached the cottage her conversation dried up. I took out my keys and the familiar scrunch of gravel welcomed me as I strode up the drive. Yet the noise appeared to act as an alarm to Trish who stopped dead whilst the hanging basket swung to and fro and would need watering once the sun had gone down. I turned around. Trish had moved back onto the pavement.
‘We can do this another day, if you prefer,’ I said. Perhaps she was still in love with the author. Ghosts didn’t exist, at least not the scary type with wide eyes and sheet-like bodies that moved through walls. But memories, did they count because they could certainly haunt us? Like every time, over recent years, I’d passed a woman on the street who looked like Mum from behind. For one brief moment I’d kid myself it was her and hurry to overtake and turn around to check. The sight of an unrecognisable face would always cause a crushing ache inside my chest.
Trish straightened her posture. ‘Now’s fine.’
I put my key in the lock and a shiver ran down my spine. For a moment I thought the door was already open. Slowly we entered the hallway and I swung the door closed behind us. Trish looked over her shoulder as if uneasy that I’d closed the way out. A meowing came from the kitchen and my relief that the kitten sounded okay cut through the sense of eeriness that had momentarily gripped both of us.
I pulled a face and went over to the litter tray. ‘If you want to wait in the lounge, Trish… the kitchen needs fumigating.’
‘It’s not a problem, I’m a mum. The smell is no worse than any nappy.’
I wrapped the dirty litter in a fragranced plastic bag, dropped it in the bin and sprayed air freshener. Trish stood by the glass doors and gazed out at the stream and was still standing there after I came back from changing into shorts.
‘You must be hungry,’ I said to Taz and picked him up. He batted my nose with his paw narrowly missing my nose ring.
‘Would you like me to hold him?’ Trish ran a hand over the curved side of the pine dresser before holding out both palms. I squeezed half a sachet of salmon-flavoured food into Taz’s bowl and refreshed the water whilst she hugged him to her chest. Trish pointed to the weeping willow, its leaves dangling like a beaded curtain. ‘I’ll tell you a secret, little man. When it’s wet or the sun’s rays are too fierce push your way through to discover the perfect cover. On really hot days, you can feel the breeze nearer to the stream and if you peer through the wired fence you’ll spot the smallest of fish darting beneath its surface.’
There was no point talking to Taz like that. He wouldn’t be here long enough to go outside. And yet I couldn’t help thinking how joyful it would be to watch him explore such a diverse garden, with hidden secrets such as discarded real feathers to play with.
How wonderful it would be to live so close to nature. There wasn’t so much as a backyard at the tattoo parlour.
As soon as Taz smelt the fish that had already been caught and cooked for his lunch, his paws pedalled violently and Trish put him down by his bowl. After looking around the room she sat at the table and fiddled with her watch strap. The kettle boiled and I poured two coffees and put out a plate of biscuits.
‘The cottage looks nice,’ she said as I sat down.
We chatted and it would seem that some bits of news didn’t spread across the village. Trish hadn’t heard about my dad’s letter. The more I talked about witches and drownings, the more intently she listened. Her drink went cold and her biscuit was left half-eaten.
‘Neve’s just told me what she knows about this place. That’s how I found out about you and Frederick. I’m sorry it didn’t work out.’
‘Your parents never lived here?’ she asked, playing with her teaspoon.
‘No. I just don’t understand why they didn’t tell me about this property.’
Trish nodded and stared at me.
‘But maybe there was a good reason and if you do find out why, they aren’t around to offer further explanations.’
‘I need to know more. Something, anything that might explain the argument we had.’
‘What was it about? If you don’t mind me asking?’
‘They… had trouble accepting that I could look after myself.’
Her face softened and she picked up the rod with a feather on the end. She held it over Taz who tried to jump up and catch it.
‘I should have made more effort to put things right.’ My finger traced the rim of my mug. ‘The least I can do is try to understand – and I need to for my own sanity.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Trish’s eyes glistened.
‘What for? It’s nothing to do with you.’
She looked away. ‘One of the hardest things in life is losing the people you love. I feel for you.’
A bird chirped outside and for a moment it was all I could hear.
‘You’ve done well to come in here, it must hold a lot of memories,’ I said.
‘You’ve no idea,’ she mumbled, dropping the rod.
‘I understand. My boyfriend and I split up around Christmas and it’s been a difficult six months. In many ways we were such a good match.’
‘Unlike me and Fred, I can see now that we were never well suited. I sold pens – he used them. That summed us up. We were at different ends of a spectrum that never met. He went jogging and dyed his slick hair whereas I can’t remember the last time I ran and have greying curls I’ve no inclination to hide. Yet the things that marked us apart, pulled us together as they kept things fresh, but this place… all his talk of ghosts…’
I picked up Taz and he settled on my lap.
‘At first I couldn’t see why Fred believed in them, even though he came from the city so the only noises he was used to at night were easily identifiable, like car engines, late night revellers or sirens.’
As time passed, I missed those familiar city noises less and less. ‘I come from London but as soon as I moved here felt settled. The night-time chat of the cottage has never bothered me, in fact quite the opposite. It’s as if I’m not alone – it’s a comfort.’
‘That’s exactly why Fred didn’t like it. He felt he had company, as if the witch was torturing him, trying to keep him awake and hoping the lack of sleep would make him jump out of the top window like a poet that once lived here. Neve told you about that?’
I nodded.
‘He asked me to move in after a couple of months. It was early on in our relationship but I felt sorry for him. He’d have nightmares and say the witch would come to him in his dreams and accuse him of being evil, of making money out of souls that weren’t at peace.’ Trish’s gaze moved to the ceiling and then the walls.
‘That must have been frightening for you as well.’ I stroked Taz. His purr sounded reassuring.
‘It made me ill, Lizzie. We found wet footsteps through the hallway once, when we came downstairs in the morning. I ended up taking pills for depression. One evening I found a ragged teddy, missing one eye, covered in blood in the bathroom.’
‘Blood?’ My hand stopped and Taz opened his eyes. Surely not? There had to be some other explanation.
‘Fred thought the witch must have left it there as a reminder of her son and another night I heard a scream come from down by the stream.’
‘What did you do?’
‘We got up and ra
n outside as quickly as we could. Fred took a torch. I was almost hysterical by this point and wanted to call the police, but Fred couldn’t face it, said we’d be laughed out of the station and if the press heard they’d ruin his reputation as a hardened thriller writer.’ She put her elbows on the table and hid her head in her hands.
‘What is it?’ I reached across and patted her arm.
‘I’ve never told anyone this but… I don’t know you well, so perhaps that makes it easier. One reason it’s taken me a long time to… to get over it all… it was … it was all so much worse than I’d first thought… you see what happened was…’
She looked around the room and her body shuddered.
‘It’s okay. You don’t have to explain.’
She wiped her wet face with the back of her hand.
‘You’ve been so brave coming here today,’ I said, keeping my tone soft, but wondering what she’d been about to say.
I made us another coffee and Trish drank in silence, the subject of Frederick and the haunting now clearly closed. I put Taz in his bed and, at her request, took her to see my tattoo equipment. The needles were much smaller than she’d expected and the power pack’s foot pedal reminded her of a sewing machine. Being close to my tools felt good in a way it hadn’t for a while. Trish flicked through my portfolio then the darkening skies outside made us realise how quickly the afternoon had passed and prompted her to leave.
‘I’m sorry for everything that man put you through. I’m surprised you’ve stayed in Leafton.’
‘It’s a lovely place to live, Lizzie, the residents are accepting and friendly. People have come and gone, over the years, but whilst here the village has embraced them into its heart.’
She opened the front door and went out. A woman approached who, despite the fading light, wore a huge floppy sunhat and bug eyeglasses and even though it wasn’t raining, a long mackintosh.
‘Hello, Caroline,’ said Trish as she passed.
‘It’s not Caroline,’ snapped the woman who walked straight past me and into the cottage.
Summer Secrets at Streamside Cottage Page 12
