by Hannah Emery
Isobel stares at him. ‘You do?’
His eyes fix on something that Isobel can’t see. They are soft green, crinkled slightly around the edges by life. His lashes are thick, dark and straight. ‘Yes. I really do.’
She thinks for a minute. June. Next summer, a pram, a tiny little pink person. Tom, holding the baby, shushing it and rocking it gently. ‘Maybe,’ she says, the word making her lighter somehow. Anxiety still claws at her and shock ripples through her body. But the raw terror has cleared. She leans her head against Tom’s shoulder, inhaling his warm scent of mint, herbs, an earthy aftershave she doesn’t know the name of. He turns and kisses her gently, and for a split second she feels as though there’s nothing wrong at all.
‘I don’t know how it’ll work,’ she says as she nestles back into Tom and puts her feet up beside her. ‘But I trust you.’ She takes the remote from where she threw it down on the sofa just after she arrived and turns the TV back on. The racing has stopped. The winner is being interviewed, beaming through his helmet.
They watch for a while, curled together like cats. Isobel’s mind whirs steadily through hundreds of thoughts. She gazes around Tom’s flat and thinks of her own. They are both so small.
But they have until June. She closes her eyes again, presses her body against Tom’s.
The first day back after half term is one of those days that never gets light. November darkness lingers in Isobel’s classroom: even with the lights on, it’s dingy. The English department is based in one of the round turrets at the top, with an arched window that rises so high it almost touches the ceiling. Isobel taps out emails on her laptop as the pupils work, glancing now and again around the room and out of the huge windows at the side of her desk.
The sky outside is a brooding purple-grey. Seagulls swoop past, cawing like rooks. The trees along the entrance to the school are almost skeletal now that winter is coming, their branches clawing in the wind. Between the trees, the grey sea churns in the distance. Isobel loves the view, loves this classroom. She can sense the past here, seeping from the huge stone bricks. When she can, Isobel weaves into her lessons stories about the castle and its past. She makes the younger classes write stories about the ghosts that might be trapped in the walls, about the horses and soldiers that might have trotted across the courtyard and the grand people who lived here when it was first built hundreds of years ago. She tells them about the enigmatic Edward du Rêve, whom the castle was built for, and how his family stayed here for generations. She tells them about how later, the chateau-style castle was used as Silenshore University for over forty years.
Isobel remembers her mother telling her stories about the strange disappearance of the du Rêves. She tries to recall the details now, as she watches silver raindrops begin to gather on the windowpanes. She sees scenes from a long time ago in her mind: images of sitting up in bed, her hair in a plait so that it would be crimped in the morning, her mother sitting on the pale-pink chair in the corner of the room with her long, thin legs crossed as she told Isobel stories to send her to sleep. Words come back to Isobel now, shrouded in her mother’s voice: they just vanished! But Isobel can’t remember the details. There are so many fragments of conversations with her mother that lie in Isobel’s mind like bits of broken china. If she thinks about them too closely, or tries to touch them, their sharp edges sting her.
She clears her throat and a few of the more restless pupils look up from their biro scrawls, eyes round with hope that the lesson is over. When Isobel announces that it is, there’s a sigh of contentment and a final rustle of papers. She clicks her laptop shut and collects the answers in, the thought of what she needs to do now that her working day is over looming in her mind.
When she reaches the bottom of the main staircase, Isobel turns away from the double doors that lead into the main hall and reception area, and instead pulls open the side door and steps into the wet afternoon. Impressive as it is, Silenshore Castle has too many secret exits to be a high school: teachers and children escape all too often. Isobel should stay and do her marking, and normally she would. But today, she can’t concentrate until she has seen her father.
Blythe Finances is about halfway down Castle Street, between the Co-op and Wheels chippy. Isobel regrets not bringing her car as the raindrops hammer down on her like needles. She has an umbrella, but the hostile wind whips it out of shape. By the time she arrives at the shop, rain has seeped through her pumps, her feet squelching unpleasantly as she pulls open the door.
Isobel’s dad sits at his usual desk, surrounded by files and Post-its. He looks away from his screen briefly and smiles as he sees Isobel.
‘Izzie! What brings you here?’
She shrugs. ‘Thought we needed a catch-up. Got time?’
Graham clicks his mouse a few times and glances at his watch. ‘Jon’s finished, so there’s only me here. I’ve just got a few phone calls to make, but then I’ve got a bit of time.’
‘I can wait,’ Isobel says. ‘I’ll go up to the flat, shall I?’
‘Go on, then,’ her dad says. ‘I’ll be up as soon as I’m done.’
Isobel surveys the lounge as she reaches the flat. A dining table that used to be the family one, on which she knows her clandestine initials are carved somewhere, sags with junk in the corner. There are no dining chairs: they’ve somehow all disappeared over time. The whole room seems wrong: the lampshade isn’t straight, the clock is four hours fast. A curling rug lies in the centre of the small room, fuzzy with cat hair. The perpetrator of the fuzz, Duke, licks his paws dolefully next to Isobel. The curtains are drawn, as they always are. She can see a crack of her father’s bedroom through the open door. His bed is unmade, his room littered with books and clothes.
Isobel shakes her head and pulls out her phone. She has a message from Tom.
Hope it goes okay. Can’t wait to see you later. T xxx
She taps out a reply as she waits for her dad to come up. He might be a while. He’s more and more involved in the business lately, and less inclined to spend time with Isobel. It’s fine, she tells herself, because he’s busy and he’s okay and that’s the main thing. But it’s not like it used to be.
After fifteen minutes of flicking through her phone, Isobel stands up, restless. Just as she reaches for the door, it opens, and her dad hurries in.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ he says. ‘I just needed to get those phone calls made.’
Isobel sits down on the old brown sofa and gestures for her dad to do the same.
‘That’s okay. Are you done for the day now?’
‘No. I’ll go back down for a bit, I think. Plenty to be getting on with, as usual. So, what’s new?’ he asks.
‘Well,’ she begins.
Her father pats his knee for Duke to join him. The cat springs up and curls on his lap. ‘Yes. We’re listening.’
‘I’ve met someone. A man. It’s going brilliantly.’
‘I’m so pleased. That’s great. And?’
‘Why does there have to be more?’
‘With a man, there’s always more.’
Isobel shakes her head and laughs. Then there’s a silence until Duke begins purring loudly, the glottal sounds filling the room.
‘I’m pregnant, Dad.’
As she blurts the words out, Isobel remembers all the other things she has blurted out to her father over the years. I’m doing teacher training, I’ve got a job at Silenshore Castle High School, I’m going to rent a flat with Iris. Her mother always spoke softly, prepped them carefully, built a platform for whatever she was going to say. Isobel has never been like that. She can’t ever think of words other than those that are on her mind. The words she wants to say blink, fluorescent and blinding. No others can be seen. She tries to look at her father but his eyes are lowered.
‘Dad?’
‘Are you happy?’ he asks eventually, looking up at her.
‘I’m really happy. I panicked at first,’ she admits. ‘I’m still kind of scared, I suppose.’
They chat for a few minutes. Graham asks when the baby will arrive, and they speculate on if it might be a girl or boy. Isobel tells her father trivial things about Tom: his shifts at the restaurant in Ashwood, his good dress sense, his flat. She makes some tea and quickly wipes the kitchen worktop while she waits for the kettle to boil. There are breadcrumbs, hard pellets of rice and shiny slivers of cheese stuck to her cloth when she’s finished. The tang of fish lingers in the air of the small kitchen, which mixes with the scent of tea and makes Isobel gag behind her sleeve.
For once, her father doesn’t snap or take offence that she has cleaned a surface and tried to make his flat more inhabitable. But after they have drunk their tea, Graham stands up.
‘I’d better get back down to the office.’
Isobel looks up at him as he stands, preoccupied, waiting for her to let him go back to bury his head in his paperwork. It’s been the same for over two years now, since that slow, inevitable morning when her mother died. Isobel’s dad always worked hard when Isobel was a child, but he usually made sure he finished in time to help her with her homework or watch Blue Peter together or eat pizza on a Friday night. Now, it’s as though his family mode has been switched off, and Isobel can’t find how to turn it back on, to tune him back into her.
‘Come on, then. I’m going to Tom’s anyway,’ she says. As they clatter down the uncarpeted stairs, a sweet, warm scent blooms in the air and overpowers the smell of frying fish and chips and vinegar from next door.
‘I can smell the bread again,’ Isobel says. The office downstairs used to be her grandparents’ bakery. Even though bread hasn’t been baked here for over thirty years, every now and again the overbearing aromas of yeast and flour, sugar and butter waft through the air.
‘It’s trapped in the walls. They don’t want us to ever forget it,’ Graham says. He says it every time they smell the bread. Even though Isobel has heard it so many times, it still makes her feel uneasy, as though the spirits of her grandparents are watching them from somewhere, their faces dusted white with flour and death.
They reach the bottom and she gives her father a brief hug. He looks down at her, at her stomach.
‘Doesn’t look like there’s much in there yet,’ he observes.
‘No, I know. I suppose it’s only a matter of time, though.’
He lifts a hand and places it gently on her belly, his unexpected touch warm and heavy. They stand for a moment, not speaking, until he moves his hand away. Isobel smiles at him, surprised and glad.
‘I think you’ll be just fine,’ he says.
When Tom swings open the door to his flat later that night, the sugary smell of cooked apples swirls in the air. He’s wearing a grey t-shirt, and to see him uncharacteristically casual makes Isobel smile and reach up to kiss him. He lingers, his hands around her waist. ‘I’ve been thinking about you all day. How are you feeling?’
‘Okay,’ Isobel says, feeling a broad grin spread over her face. ‘I’m feeling good today, actually. And something in here smells fantastic. It’s making me hungry.’
‘That’s because I’m doing one of my specialities. You’re going to love it.’
‘I’m loving the t-shirt too,’ she says, touching the soft grey cotton. ‘I usually like a man in a suit,’ she says with a wink. ‘But you really pull off casual.’
Tom laughs. ‘Well, that’s a relief. How did it go with your dad?’
‘He was fine with it. Calmer than I was. I think I expected him to freak out. But I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I freaked out.’
‘Maybe it’s because you’re his little girl. That’s a bit of a cliché, though, I suppose.’
Isobel shakes her head. ‘I’m not sure. To be honest, since Mum died, I feel like we’re not that close. It felt a bit weird even telling him about you. I don’t speak to him that much about real life these days. He’s always distracted by work. But today was good, I suppose, because I had to talk to him properly, and I suppose he had to listen.’
‘I’m glad,’ Tom says. ‘I felt a bit nervous, actually. Dads can be funny about who their daughters end up with, can’t they?’
Isobel smiles. ‘I think he could see how happy you make me. That helped.’
The words are luminous and dance around them. Tom’s face brightens and he leans down to kiss Isobel. After her long day, Isobel wants to melt into him, into his scent of herbs and wine. She pulls him closer and they linger over their kiss until Tom pulls away reluctantly.
‘Dinner calls,’ he says apologetically, going over to the hob.
‘Isn’t this like being at work?’ Isobel asks. ‘I’d have thought you’d be sick of cooking for other people. I was expecting a microwave meal. Or a takeaway.’
‘A man in a suit and a microwave meal?’ Tom laughs. ‘You had some strange expectations, Isobel Blythe.’
Isobel laughed. ‘Well, all I can say is that you’ve exceeded my expectations anyway, as always. I can’t wait to taste your cooking. What are we having?’ She sits down at the small glass table.
Tom clears his throat and whips a white tea towel over his shoulder. ‘Filet mignon de porc Normande,’ he says with an uncharacteristically dramatic flourish of the hands. ‘Normandy Pork.’
‘It smells amazing. Is this a throwback from your time in France?’ Isobel remembers Tom mentioning that he spent a year or so living in France when they first met.
‘Yes, I suppose it is. I tried this dish for the first time there, although I never cooked it. I didn’t cook much when I lived in France. I mostly existed on bread and cheese. Have you been to France?’
‘No. But I know a lot about Paris because Iris really wants to go. She’s obsessed.’
‘She’s got good taste. It’s not a bad place to be obsessed with.’ Tom says as he stirs the pot on his sleek black hob. ‘What about you? Where’s your number-one destination?’
‘Vienna,’ Isobel replies quickly. ‘I’ve always wanted to go to Vienna.’
Tom smiles and comes to sit at the table. ‘The city of dreams?’
Isobel nods. ‘I even love that it’s called that.’
‘I’ve never been. But I’d definitely go. We’ll add it to our list.’
‘Our list?’
‘Yeah. You know: have a baby, then go to France and then do Vienna.’
Isobel laughs. ‘That’s a pretty short list.’
‘Well, we need to keep it manageable.’ Tom scores a match and lights some tea lights on the table, and then goes back to the kitchen.
‘Actually,’ Isobel says, standing up and following Tom. ‘I kind of have a thing agreed with Iris. She promised to go to Vienna with me. My mum lived there when she was young, and she used to talk about it a lot. She made it sound like something out of a fairy tale: all castles and balls and music. When she died, I suggested to my dad that we should go. He got upset with me, said it was a terrible idea to go there without her, and I haven’t brought it up with him since. We had a bit of a falling out about it, which kind of made me even more determined to go.’
Iris had promised Isobel she’d go with her to Vienna on one condition: that they could go to Paris together too. She’d dug out a battered Paris brochure from her bedside drawer and printed out a webpage on Vienna for Isobel. Then she’d taken a shoebox from her wardrobe, tipped out the shoes onto her bed, and put the papers together in there instead. ‘This can be our box of dreams,’ she’d said.
They had laughed at the drama in Iris’s voice, at the clichéd title she had given the box. But they had kept it and filled it with more leaflets and printouts until the sides bulged.
Tom nods. ‘I know what you mean. My mum can sometimes be funny about remembering my dad, and things they did when they were young. It’s like it just hurts too much to think about the past.’
‘I can understand that. But losing her also t
aught me that life’s short. So I try to make the most of it. Obviously, it hurts to think about her sometimes because I miss her so much. But I do want to try and keep her with us, by doing things that she liked. I think that’s what she would have wanted me to do. But my dad doesn’t seem to think like that.’
‘Well, he might come round. But I’m with you. I think Vienna sounds brilliant. And it doesn’t matter who you go with, it can still be on the list.’
‘Thanks, Tom. That means a lot.’
Tom grins and winks suggestively. ‘You can show me exactly how much after dinner. I mean, Filet mignon de porc Normande.’
Isobel laughs and sits at the table. ‘It’s gorgeous,’ she says as she bites into a tender piece of pork. The flavours of cider and sweet apples have seeped into the meat and the taste is comforting.
‘No nausea?’ Tom asks.
‘Nope. None at all.’ In fact, Isobel’s stomach growls as she begins eating. She has another mouthful and takes a piece of warm bread from the basket that Tom has put between them on the table.
‘So, do you get to cook much French stuff at work?’ she asks when she has finished chewing.
‘Not really. It’s mostly quite thoughtless Italian food. Pizza and pasta. I don’t get to choose the menu, which is a bit frustrating. But this is actually another item for our list,’ adds Tom as he slices neatly into his meat. ‘I really want to open a French restaurant at some point. I would’ve done it already, but starting up a business isn’t cheap, so I’m having to save up and be patient. It’ll happen one day, I’m sure.’
‘Where would you open your restaurant?’ The restaurant Tom works at now is in the centre of Ashwood, which is a grey and uninspiring town that was mainly built in the 1960s – all concrete estates and uniform buildings and towers of flats. It’s impossible to imagine a French restaurant there.
‘I’d open it in Silenshore. This place needs to be famous for something other than people going missing and never coming back.’
Isobel thinks of the stories she’s heard over the years: of the strange disappearing du Rêve family, of the man who was found dead at the castle in the 1960s, of the girl who was taken away one Valentine’s day and was never seen again. ‘I think all the mystery makes Silenshore more special,’ she says. ‘There’s something almost mystical about the castle and all its secrets. Plus, if you hadn’t been so drawn to the castle, we would never have met.’
