by Imogen Clark
‘I got to thinking. Suppose, just suppose, that they are from Mum, that she didn’t actually die . . .’
Michael’s eyebrows shoot up and he is about to tell me that I am being ridiculous but I keep talking.
‘So, I did a search on the internet on one of those family-tree sites. I thought I’d see if I could find her death certificate.’
I’m talking really quickly now, my words all tumbling over one another in my rush to get them out before I lose him completely.
‘And there’s no death certificate, Michael. I searched over and over again and there is no death certificate for our mother. What if she didn’t die? She sent us those postcards and she didn’t die? And if that’s true then that means that Dad has been lying to us for years and I don’t know what to do next.’
The stress of the last twenty-four hours suddenly hits me. Hot tears build up behind my eyes, waiting to escape. My breathing becomes jagged and I begin to sob, loud and convulsing, like a little girl. Michael doesn’t move.
‘What if I’m right, Michael?’ I splutter through my tears. ‘What if she’s been out there, somewhere, all these years and . . .’
I can’t talk anymore. My head drops and I just shake, silently.
‘That’s bollocks,’ says Michael loudly enough that I wince. ‘Our mother died when we were small and that’s all there is to it. I don’t know who sent these but it must have been someone playing a sick joke on Dad. And as for this rubbish about the birth certificate, you probably just got the search wrong.’
Of course he resorts to assuming that I’ve made a mistake. Sometimes he can be so like Dad. I ignore the slight, determined to stick to my guns.
‘I didn’t, Michael. I didn’t. There is no death certificate at the central registry for Anne Ferensby in 1987 or at any time. Unless that wasn’t her real name then our mother is not dead. And what about the postcards? Surely they point to her being alive too? She left but she wanted us to know that she loved us so she sent the postcards. There are hundreds of them, Michael, Hundreds.’
‘Like sending a bunch of postcards can ever make up for abandoning us.’
I smell the concession and seize on it.
‘So you agree that she might not be dead?’ I ask desperately.
‘I don’t know. I don’t want to know. As far as I’m concerned, she died when she died or walked out on us or whatever she did back then. None of this . . .’ He flicks at the postcards with his fingers and sends them flying off the table. ‘None of this makes any difference. I have no mother.’
‘But Michael. Don’t you want to know why, what happened? Aren’t you just the tiniest bit curious?’
‘Nope,’ he says with a finality that I recognise. ‘I’m not interested. I couldn’t care less. I don’t want to hear anything else about it. Our mother is dead and that’s the end of it.’ He picks up his glass and drains it in one gulp. ‘Come on. We’re going home. And don’t mention any of this to Marianne either. I don’t want her and the girls caught up in your little fantasies.’
I look up at the face of my big brother and somewhere, deep behind the anger and the bravado, I see the little boy that he once was: hurt, confused and lost. But the impression is fleeting and then he’s gone, striding towards the door and leaving me scrabbling around trying to retrieve my bag and the postcards.
We don’t speak as he marches along the pavement, me taking two steps to his one to keep up. When we get to the house, he stops at the gate and turns to face me. He puts a hand gently on my shoulder. His expression has mellowed and his voice is calmer.
‘Let it go, Ca,’ he says. ‘No good can come of it. If she abandoned us then she might as well have died. What kind of mother leaves her own children? This whole thing needs putting back in the attic where you found it and forgetting about.’
To my surprise, he puts his arm around me and gives me a quick, awkward squeeze. Then he turns and heads up to the front door. I follow, numbed by what just happened, but I can’t put the genie back in the bottle, forget what I have discovered. I won’t. It’s out and there’s nothing I can do about it now. And even if I could, I don’t want to.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Thankfully, Marianne has gone to bed when we get in. I am relieved. I am not sure that either of us could deal with her questioning looks just now. Michael checks doors and windows and pulls out plugs ready for the house to sleep. Who still does that?
I climb into bed and let the duvet smother my body. The room smells lightly of something floral, rose maybe, and the sheets are cool and crisp against my skin. My limbs are exhausted but my mind cannot sleep, not yet. I lie on my back and listen to the sounds of the city, so much more intrusive at night than during the day. At home, I’m more likely to be kept awake by an owl than a siren but I suppose what you’re used to becomes the norm pretty quickly. I would miss the dark, though, if I lived in a city. It is never dark in London, not really dark like it is on the moors. I remember discovering the stars when we moved to Ilkley. I saw them in the winter sky for the first time when all I’d known before was the orange glow of the city and suddenly the nursery rhymes made sense. ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’ and ‘The Man in the Moon’ were real after all. I told Michael what I had found, pointing up at the sky with a sense of triumph, but he just shrugged, like he’d known about the stars all the while, and I felt cheated of my big discovery.
My eyes spring open. Something has just occurred to me. I know that it’s important but, having drifted across my mind like a waft of smoke, it’s now dissipated into the darkness. Suddenly the need to recapture it becomes all-consuming but the harder I search, the further away it seems to drift. I try retracing my mental steps. The siren, the sky, the dark, the stars, Michael. There’s nothing there, nothing that feels significant anyway. I force myself to close my eyes again and then it comes to me. If I remember discovering the stars in Yorkshire then surely that means that I must remember what they were like in London – and that is a memory. A memory from before Mum died. And if there’s one, then there must be more, somewhere. I just have to find where to look for them. I lie there, the rose scent drifting in and out of my nostrils, but nothing else comes. Perhaps that was it, the one memory that I have, triggered by being back here in the city. But I can’t believe that’s true. Memory is complicated, isn’t it? It won’t just have stored that one, random thing. Others must come, given time. I just have to be patient and wait. I’m not that good at being patient.
I don’t think I’ll ever get to sleep but of course I do. Around seven o’clock I start to hear people moving about the house, and I get up and dressed without bothering to shower. I just want to leave now, to get home, check on Dad, consider my next move. I must speak to Michael first, though. Does he really want nothing to do with this? What if I find her? Then what? Am I supposed to just not mention it to him? I am on this journey and he has to come with me. He has no choice this time. I can’t let him go to work without checking where he’s got to in his thoughts, to make sure that he is all right, that he’s softening. I’ll be able to tell just by looking at him. I always know.
But I’m too late. When I come down the stairs, Marianne is making sandwiches in the kitchen.
‘Morning,’ she says, her smile as bright as usual. ‘You look tired, Cara. Did you not sleep well? It’s always hard in a strange bed. You’ve just missed Michael. He had an early meeting. He says to say goodbye and that you mustn’t worry. I imagine it must be really difficult for you, having the responsibility of your dad all by yourself. We’re always here for you, though. All you have to do is ask.’ She slices the sandwiches deftly into triangles. ‘Coffee?’
‘I think I’ll just get off,’ I say. ‘I still have some bits and pieces to buy.’
‘You can’t do that. There’s no point going without any breakfast inside you. And you haven’t said goodbye to the girls. Sit down and I’ll make a fresh pot. Toast?’
And so I am looked after by my capable sister-in-law, who a
pparently has no idea that her husband’s carefully constructed world has just collapsed in on itself.
When I get home, I hurry up the drive, aware that my heart is beating a little faster. Empty milk bottles sit on the front step together with a terracotta plant pot, newly filled with winter-flowering pansies that Mrs P must have planted while I was away. I let myself in, shouting out before the door is closed behind me.
‘Hello. It’s me! I’m back.’ Silence. The back of my neck prickles. ‘Hello,’ I call again. ‘Dad! Mrs P! Is there anyone here?’
I drop my bags and open doors looking for signs of life but the house is tidy and very, very empty. I’m reaching for my mobile phone when it hits me. Why would I expect them to be here? Dad will be at the day centre and Mrs P doesn’t hang around here when there’s no one to look after. I look up at the clock in the hall to confirm my realisation but of course I’m right.
When I go into the kitchen, there is a note from Mrs P on the kitchen table written in neat, block capitals.
DEAR CARA. HOPE YOU HAD A SUCCESSFUL TRIP. ALL WELL HERE. YOUR FATHER WAS FINE. SEE YOU THIS EVENING.
REGARDS,
ANGELA PARTINGTON (MRS P)
As I flick the kettle on, I feel a little foolish. I assume that my guilt stems from not really doing a proper risk assessment of the situation before I raced off to see Michael. As it turned out, it was fine – but what if it hadn’t been? Even as this thought crosses my mind, I dismiss it. All is well. I have no reason to worry about what ifs, which is good because I have far bigger things to worry about.
I’m just unpacking my purchases and putting them away in my workroom when the phone rings.
‘Hi. You’ll never guess what!’ says a bubbly voice that I recognise immediately as Beth’s.
‘They’ve recreated the Taj Mahal in sugar cubes on the Grove.’
‘What?! No! We’ve set a date.’
‘That’s exciting,’ I say. ‘May I ask when?’
‘Christmas Eve! Isn’t it just the most romantic thing you’ve ever heard? I’m thinking furs and candles and holly berries.’
I am a bit taken aback. ‘What? Next Christmas Eve?’
‘No, silly. This Christmas Eve.’
I do a quick mental calculation. ‘The Christmas Eve that’s in, what? Eight weeks?’ Even as I work out how long it is away, I am already thinking of what I have on my books and how I can possibly get Beth’s dress designed and made within such a short timescale.
‘Eight weeks and five days, to be precise,’ says Beth, and she sounds so delighted that I can’t help but get caught up in it.
‘Beth, that’s fantastic! Congratulations,’ I say eventually. ‘But it’s not long. How will you get a venue booked in that time, especially at Christmas? Isn’t everywhere full?’
‘That’s the romantic part,’ she says. ‘You know that hotel that Greg took me to when he proposed?’
I nod down the telephone.
‘Well, it’s going to be there. Greg booked it in secret. Won’t it be just perfect?’
‘But he only proposed a few weeks ago,’ I object. ‘Surely . . .’
‘Ah. But he’d already pencilled the date in for the wedding before he proposed. So when I said yes, all he had to do was confirm.’
I’m so taken aback by this that, for a moment, I can’t respond.
‘Cara?’ I hear Beth say. ‘Are you still there?’
‘Yes,’ I manage. My mind races with how to deal with this sensitively and without spoiling the moment for Beth, who couldn’t be more pleased with the way things with Greg seem to be turning out. ‘Don’t you think it’s a little bit odd that he booked the reception before he had even asked you to marry him?’ I ask as gently as I can.
‘No,’ she laughs. ‘That’s Greg all over. He’s just so well organised and he was certain that I’d love a Christmas wedding. We’ll be able to fly off on honeymoon on Christmas Day. It’ll be perfect. And he knew that I’d say yes. I mean, you knew that I’d say yes and you’re only my best friend so of course the man who’s going to be my husband knew.’
Of course he did, I think.
‘So,’ Beth continues. ‘That means we’re going to have to get our skates on with the dress. I know it’s not long. Do you think we can do it in that time or is it too much to ask?’
I can hear in her voice how badly she wants me to say yes. I think of my existing commitments, admittedly not as bad as they would be in the spring. I think of what I have on my plate with Dad and what he needs from me. I think about the box of postcards and Michael.
‘No problem,’ I hear myself say. ‘We may need to choose something that’s not too complicated but I’m sure we can get it done in time. And I’m just back from London with silk in the prettiest ivory you’ve ever seen. I had you in mind when I bought it. If you like it, then I think it would be perfect.’
‘I love you, Cara Ferensby,’ she says. I can hear the smile in her voice.
‘I know. I am totally wonderful and you could not possibly live without me,’ I reply. ‘Right. You need to get your bones down here PDQ with some pictures and a head full of ideas so that we can get some drawings started.’
‘I knew you wouldn’t let me down,’ says Beth. ‘Greg said he thought there wouldn’t be time and that we should go and get a dress from London but I told him that you could do it.’
That decides it. I will have the dress made in time and it will be the most beautiful dress that I have ever created. Even as I think this, it crosses my mind that Greg might have waited before telling Beth about the date precisely so that I wouldn’t have enough time left, leaving her with no option than to do what he wants, but I keep that thought to myself.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The next day, Beth arrives with her arms full of bridal magazines and her head full of ideas. I can’t help but smile as I see her struggling up the path, the magazines threatening to slither from her grip. By the time I open the door to her, she is almost bent double as she tries to hold on to them all.
‘Quick!’ she squeals. ‘Help!’ and then pushes past me and into the front room, where she finally lets them slide into a heap on the floor.
‘Did you did leave any in the shop?’ I ask.
‘I had them all in order when I left home, with my favourites at the top. Now I’ll have to start again.’
She doesn’t look like this should be too much of a hardship as she sets to, flicking though each one and stopping at the pages with turned-down corners. I feel a stab of envy. Isn’t planning her wedding supposed to be every girl’s dream? I have been involved in so many but never my own. What is it that they say? Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. That’s me.
‘There are so many to choose from,’ Beth says and I wonder if eking a design out of her is going to be a long job. ‘But I’m pretty clear on what I want now,’ she adds.
‘That’s great,’ I say, dismissing my darker thoughts. ‘Once we’ve got the basic outline sorted, the rest of it should fall into place without too much difficulty. I’ll go and put the kettle on.’
Dad is in the kitchen, where I left him, still sitting at the table. He’s been looking at a coffee-table book about the Hebrides, poring over the images as if he’s searching for clues to some mystery that only he can solve. He looks up hopefully when I walk in but then, when he sees it’s me, he goes back to his book.
‘Beth’s here,’ I say. ‘She’s in the front room. She’s getting married soon. I’m going to make her dress.’ Dad shows no flicker of recognition at her name. ‘I’m making a cup of tea, Dad. Would you like one?’
He nods enthusiastically then he seems to smile broadly at the space behind me; and when I turn round, Beth is standing there, a magazine in hand.
‘Hello, Mr Ferensby,’ she says. ‘How are you doing?’
Dad nods. ‘Good,’ he says.
‘Has Cara told you that she’s going to make my wedding dress? This is the one that I like the best,’ she adds, handing me the magazine
over Dad’s head.
He reaches up to grab it but he’s not fast enough. I bend down to show it to Dad. It’s a beautiful dress, elegant and simple in a twenties style that wouldn’t have looked out of place in The Great Gatsby. Beth will look stunning in it and it won’t be too challenging to make – which is a bonus, bearing in mind how little time we have.
Dad nods his head in approval. ‘Nice,’ he says.
‘No Mrs P today?’ asks Beth.
‘Day off,’ I say. ‘Just us today, isn’t it, Dad?’
Dad nods at me and I wonder, not for the first time, just how much of what is said around him he actually follows these days. Maybe more than I give him credit for.
‘So,’ I say to Beth. ‘Is this dress the starting point or the dress?’ I’m hoping that it is the former. There’s no fun for me in just copying someone else’s design, setting aside any legal issues that that might raise.
‘Well,’ says Beth. ‘I like the idea of this kind of thing but I want the waist to be lower and the skirt needs to be drapey-er somehow. And I’m not sure Greg would like a dress with no sleeves. He always says that a wedding is supposed to be a wedding and not a party.’ She must see something change in my face because she adds, ‘But it’s my dress and I love how elegant this one is. Just look at the way the back falls.’
‘It’s gorgeous,’ I agree. ‘We’ll go through to my workroom and I’ll do some sketches of the kind of thing that I think might work. I need to show you that silk, too, see if you like it. I think it would be perfect but it might not be what you want.’
