The Snow Rose

by Lulu Taylor

  The wedding takes place with a great air of festivity and joyous celebration. The church is decked out in large arrangements of white flowers. The day is bright and sunny, and Arabella makes a beautiful bride, in a long white silk gown, a veil and a wreath of orange blossom. She wears white satin shoes and carries white roses. The Beloved is majestic in a white suit. It is Sarah who joins their hands together, reads the vows and hears the responses, and blesses the rings. It is she who marries them. Her face shines with joy as she presents the couple to the congregation, and announces that the Lamb’s will has been done.

  The Beloved cries, ‘But the Lamb’s will is not yet fulfilled! There is more! Last night, I saw a mighty vision. A vision of delight where a holy soul brought a wavering one to the fold, the great and happy fold.’

  The atmosphere instantly becomes electric with anticipation. What is this? What is about to happen? The congregation holds its breath.

  The Beloved leaves his new bride and walks down the aisle. As he goes, he puts out a hand to Letty, and she automatically takes it. He leads her out from her row and into the aisle, then reaches out to . . . for an awful second she thinks it is Mr Kendall, and she remembers the Beloved’s promise to him and his wife. And then she sees that it is not Mr Kendall, but Arthur who is being grasped and led out into the aisle as well. Now they are both being taken back to the top of the church, to stand before the altar.

  ‘Here they are,’ calls the Beloved. ‘The Lamb desires their union and so it shall be, right here, right now. Let us make this a doubly joyous day. Stand and face each other and take your hands.’

  Letty can hardly believe what is happening. She is standing before them all, her hand held by Arthur Kendall. The Beloved has produced two rings from his pocket, and the ceremony is beginning. The Beloved is marrying her to the sulky boy, who has moped and sloped about the place for weeks, not speaking, not joining in, resisting it all.

  It will be my job to save his soul, she thinks numbly, and realises as she looks into his grey eyes that he is staring back at her in fury and disgust. But he does as she does, and obeys.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I am in a very dark place, and because they have taken away my wine and my pills – the things that used to help keep the worst of it at bay – there is nothing to numb the pain. I lie on the bed for hours, hugging Heather’s stuffed puffin close, burying my nose in it in case I can get some trace of her scent. Tears come and go, ambushing me in gusts and floods. It’s almost easier when they’re carrying the grief out of me than when I’m dry-eyed. When I cry and howl, I feel bigger than the grief. When I lie silent, it grows – huge, vile and black. It becomes bigger than I am and encloses me like a terrible prison cell. In those moments, I only want to die. The loss of Heather is too much. Too dreadful. I can’t bear it, and no one should expect me to.

  How did I get here? How did this happen to me?

  It started before that awful night, of course. The roots of every huge event are buried far below it, deep in the earth. Did ours begin to grow in the months before, or the years before, or should I go back to the day Rory asked me to marry him? Was that really when we were set inexorably on the path to our tragedy?

  I remember telling Caz all the things about Rory that drove me mad, but of course I didn’t see them at first. We were so happy in those early years, feeling as though we’d won some kind of amazing lottery, finding each other and falling in love, then having our gorgeous children. We were both full of wonder at our good fortune, and completely accepting of it. Of course our lives were going to be happy. We were the lucky ones. I had a good job with prospects, and brought home more money than Rory did in his job as a finance director of a small charity. That was fine. I didn’t resent it. I knew he loved his work and I was glad that I earned enough to make sure we could have the things that were important to me: a pretty house in a pleasant area that I could decorate as I liked, decent holidays, things for the children, from bicycles to tennis lessons. I was perfectly okay with it all.

  But then . . .

  I’d thought we were as close as any married couple could be. I trusted him completely, partly because I knew he could never do anything as low, stupid and predictable as Phil had. I was certain that Rory would never have an affair, or even look at another woman. He was a kind, loving husband, a wonderful father, a dependable friend.

  But I didn’t see that he was also deceitful. He hid things. His tendency to silence should have told me to be wary of what he concealed. I never saw it coming.

  One day, when I was gathering up abandoned bits of paper on the sideboard to chuck in the recycling, I found the draft of a letter, typed up and printed out. I picked it up and read it, as I would anything in the house because there were no secrets here. It was Rory’s response to his bosses’ decision to make him redundant.

  I frowned as I read, trying to take it in. Rory finished his letter by saying, I have a family – a wife and two young children. This sector is losing jobs and there’s no guarantee I can get another. Please, I beg you, don’t do this. Please let me keep my job and I will work twice as hard as ever, I guarantee it.

  But had he sent it? Had they made him redundant?

  I was shaky and frightened as I dialled his office number. I never used it. Rory had suggested ages ago that we communicate only via our home email addresses or an online app, so that we could never be accused of using our work inboxes for personal issues.

  The voice on the other end sang out the charity’s name and then: ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Can I speak to Rory Overman please?’

  ‘Oh . . . I don’t think . . . Let me just check for you.’ There was a long pause. ‘Sorry, I’m afraid no one of that name works here.’

  My stomach plummeted with a sickening swoop. ‘But he did, didn’t he? Until . . . ?’

  ‘Yes, until . . . er . . . March, according to the list. But he’s no longer here.’

  March! Six months ago! ‘Do you know where he works now?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. Is there someone else that can help you?’

  ‘No. Thank you. Goodbye.’ My hand shook as I put the phone down. I looked around the empty house. I was supposed to be working from home, and I had been until I started clearing up while the kettle was boiling for coffee. The children were at school. I had no idea, I realised with a start, where Rory was. He wasn’t where I thought he’d be. Where is he? What’s he doing?

  I had no clue of his whereabouts when five minutes ago I’d been certain. The shock of realising that he’d been deceiving me so thoroughly made my world rock on its axis, and I was dazed, uncomprehending.

  But I’m here on my own.

  I went to the study, where all our papers and bank statements and household files were kept, and started to go through everything on the desk, letter by letter.

  I was determined to find out what the hell was going on.

  That evening, when Rory came in, wearing his suit and carrying a briefcase as usual, I smiled and pretended to know nothing. I’d already found out that there was more to this than a job loss, and I wanted to be sure of myself before I confronted him, in case he tried to spin more lies. I asked some casual questions about his day and he responded with answers that once would have washed lightly over me, only half registered, but that now burnt into my mind. They were lies, all of them: the throwaway remarks about his lunch hour, and the rubbish baked potato he ate in the canteen, the flight delays for So-and-So who’s just back from holiday, the conference call with the Scottish branch. All made up. Fantasy.

  I don’t know how I stayed calm and let him do it. Perhaps it was unfair and I shouldn’t have. But I did and he went on, digging a deeper and deeper hole that would be, eventually, impossible to get out of.

  Of course, now it all seems so stupid. There I was, making dinner, all of us safe and alive, in our beautiful home. It was all still okay. But I didn’t see it like that: I was frightened. I thought we were going to lose everything, and it woul
d all be Rory’s fault. Worse than that, I thought my marriage was over. How could he lie to me about something like that, so huge, so momentous? We had been so happy once, but it must have turned sour somewhere when I wasn’t looking. It was the abruptness of the reversal that was so shocking. Was I such an awful wife, such a terrible person, that he couldn’t tell me that things had gone wrong for him?

  Now that I understand what loss really is, all of it seems so trivial. What is a house? Nothing that can’t be rebuilt. Even a lost marriage can be replaced. But a child . . .

  I sigh in the darkness, alone in the prison cell of grief. Now Heather has gone, irrevocably and forever. My mind won’t make her live anymore, and I wish I could go out like a candle and know nothing more.

  I want it to stop. Forever.

  Chapter Twenty

  The phone rings, startling Caz out of sleep, and she’s grabbing for it instantly before she’s even awake. Her first thought, her fear, is that something is wrong with the girls and Phil is calling to say there’s been an accident. Ever since the fire, she’s been afraid. Bad things do happen after all.

  ‘Yes, yes? Who is it?’

  ‘It’s me, it’s Kate!’

  ‘Kate?’ She sits up, blinking in the darkness. ‘I’m so glad you called! Are you okay? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Oh Caz.’ Kate starts to wail. ‘It’s Heather!’

  ‘I know, darling. I know, sweetheart. It’s terrible. So terrible.’ Caz’s heart aches for her, for what she must be suffering.

  She doesn’t seem to hear her. ‘Caz, it’s Heather. I can’t find her! I’ve lost her.’ She starts to sob. ‘They wanted to take her away from me and now they have. You have to look for her, Caz. Tell her I’m sorry. Tell her I want to be with her but they won’t let me.’

  ‘But, Kate . . .’ She’s helpless. ‘I don’t know where she is either. Because she isn’t anywhere anymore, you know that.’

  ‘She might be at the house, Caz. Go to the house.’

  ‘But the house is gone. It’s burnt. It’s all gone. Remember?’

  ‘No,’ Kate insists. ‘It’s not gone. You’re there now. Find Heather, will you?’

  The phone goes dead and Caz looks around. She’s not in her room at all, but in Kate and Rory’s bedroom in their old house. She always liked it, with its pale green walls, the old-fashioned brass bedstead, and the thick cream curtains. She thought it had burnt away to a shell, but here she is. And in the bed, Rory is sleeping beside her, his dark head turned away from her on the pillow.

  This isn’t real. I’m dreaming.

  She gets out of bed. The wooden floorboards are smooth and solid under her feet as she goes slowly across the room to the door. Outside the corridor is just as she remembers, and there are the two doors. One goes to Ady’s room, and one into Heather’s room. She turns the handle of Heather’s bedroom. At first it won’t move, then she hears a soft, sweet voice singing inside and is filled with delight. It’s Heather, she knows it. She fumbles at the handle and it moves suddenly, the door swinging open. The room inside is not like the rest of the house. It’s what remained after the fire: dripping, blackened, open to the sky and reeking of smoke, burnt fabric and charred wood. But there she is, standing with her back to Caz looking out over the garden below, her fair hair glowing in the moonlight.

  ‘Heather, baby!’ Caz rushes to her and kneels down in the ashy, soggy mess to embrace her. She can feel Heather under her hands: she’s soft and warm and so incredibly real. Caz starts to cry with joy at seeing her again. She’s grieved for her too, the little girl she knew from a baby, her goddaughter. Even if this isn’t real, she wants it to be, so, so much, just for now.

  Heather turns round and puts her arms around Caz’s neck. ‘Godma Caz,’ she says, pressing a cheek against hers.

  ‘Heather, we love you. We miss you so much. Your mummy and daddy miss you.’

  ‘I miss you too.’

  ‘Can’t you come back to us? Can’t you?’

  She doesn’t say anything but hums lightly into Caz’s ear. Then she says softly, ‘Mummy needs your help. You have to help her.’

  ‘I want to, but I don’t know what to do. What shall I do?’

  ‘You have to help her,’ says Heather again.

  ‘Yes . . . Tell me what to do, sweetheart, please . . .’ Then suddenly, in the other room, Caz’s phone starts ringing again, blaring out into the night. She gets to her feet, thinking of Rory asleep there. She doesn’t want to wake him. He mustn’t be disturbed. ‘Wait here,’ she says to Heather. ‘I’ll only be a second.’ She runs out of the burnt-out room and back towards the main bedroom. There is her phone on the bedside table, the display lit up, and the ringtone cutting through the air. Rory stirs. He mustn’t be woken. She reaches for the phone, grabs for it but she can’t get hold of it—

  Then she wakes, rushing up to the surface of reality, knowing she’s left Heather behind in her dreams. She’s instantly frustrated. We weren’t finished. I’m still in the dark. There was something I didn’t manage to do but I can’t remember what it is.

  She’s dazed, still almost able to feel Heather under her hands, and smell the sweet scent of her hair. Caz is breathless from the force of her dream and its sudden end. Then she’s filled with the deepest misery she’s ever known, and starts to weep.

  She can’t sleep after that, so she goes downstairs to the kitchen, making tea as if sleepwalking. The vivid dream has brought it all back to her: the intensity of the grief and loss they all felt on that awful night, that terrible night.

  Caz got a call from Rory at four o’clock in the morning to say that they needed her. There had been a fire at the house. He sounded shaky.

  ‘Oh God, Rory, that’s awful. Are you all okay? Has much been lost?’ For some reason, she imagined something small and contained: the utility room burnt out, or the new kitchen charred to a crisp and the ceiling smeared with sooty stains, firemen rushing past while the family stood shivering on the front lawn in their night things.

  But he began to wail, a sound that made her skin creep and her joints go weak. ‘It’s all gone, Caz! The house . . . everything . . . You’ve got to come to us. We’ve lost her, we’ve lost her.’

  ‘Kate? You’ve lost Kate?’

  ‘No . . . no . . . Heather. It’s Heather.’ Then he couldn’t speak anymore.

  Caz got to the hospital twenty minutes later, speeding through the empty streets and not caring if she got stopped because she wouldn’t stop, she’d do anything to get to them. Kate was there, blank-eyed, her face and hands blackened where she’d fought to get to the children. Ady had woken up and, tall and strong for nine years old, had managed to get his window open and jumped out. He was alive but in an induced coma while they assessed the state of his injuries. He had a broken leg, a fractured wrist and a punctured spleen at the very least, but they were concentrating on his head and neck where they feared there was trauma.

  A policewoman, quiet, sympathetic, sat with them, observing, occasionally talking into the radio on her shoulder.

  Rory was weeping uncontrollably. Caz hugged him and stroked his hair, then went to Kate and took her hand. She turned to look at her with those dead eyes. The house was now taped off while the fire service and police forensics began their investigation.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Caz whispered. It seemed hardly enough, and yet it was all there was to say.

  ‘I went to get her out,’ Kate said clearly. ‘I tried to get to her room.’

  ‘Oh Kate. I’m . . . so sorry.’ Hot acid tears burnt Caz’s eyes. She couldn’t bring herself to picture Heather in her bedroom, or think of her at all in case she dissolved and couldn’t be strong for Kate and Rory. ‘Sweetheart, I can’t imagine what you’re going through.’

  ‘They had to stop her running back in,’ Rory said through his tears. ‘She tried, but even though she wanted to, she couldn’t have. It was physically impossible to get back up the stairs.’

  ‘Are you injured, Kate?’ Caz asked,
wondering if she too jumped from the upper floor. ‘Have you seen a doctor?’

  She looked impatient. ‘Yes, yes. I’m fine.’

  Rory said, ‘She’s okay. We don’t know yet where she was when it started, but it was the back that went up. Where the kids were. Oh Christ.’ He knuckles his eyes. ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe we’ll never see her again.’

  Kate got up and paced about, muttering something to herself. Caz watched her anxiously, feeling helpless, not knowing where to begin. What do you say to someone when something like this happens? All she could think of was practicalities: how to get them hot drinks and food; where they would sleep and what they would wear; how to arrange visits to Ady in hospital. And there would be the funeral to sort out. Presumably an inquest. She wasn’t sure how it all worked. More than anything she wanted to gather Leia and Mika into her arms and hold them tight and never let them go.

  Caz thinks it began that very night, though, even before she reached the hospital. Kate’s uncoupling from everyone else. She seemed to enter into her own world, a place where there was no Ady at all. The old Kate disappeared. Of course she would change. Caz expected shock, grief and trauma, and perhaps a long road to the acceptance of what had happened. But Kate was not only utterly changed, she seemed completely removed from what was taking place around her.

  From the start, Kate went through what had to be done not like someone in shock but like someone simply unaware of what was going on. When Caz tried to talk to her about Ady and persuade her to go to the hospital and see him, Kate seemed not to have any idea of who or what she was referring to, and soon began to forbid all mention of him. His name sent her into a kind of hysteria and they soon learned not to say it in front of her.

  ‘It’s grief,’ her friends told each other. ‘Soon she’ll come out of it and want to see him.’

  But there was no sign of that.

  The coroner adjourned the inquest and released the body. At Heather’s funeral, Kate did not so much seem zombified with grief or the tranquillisers she was on, as uncomprehending of why she was there. Rory, in utter white-faced agony, held it together as best he could as people hugged him, offered condolences for the unbearable, but Kate stood apart, as though she’d been invited to the funeral of a stranger. She showed no emotion at any point. Caz even saw her glance at her watch as if hoping the whole thing would be over quickly.