by Hannah Emery
In the end, after walking back to Broadsands with Isobel, and listening to Daphne’s trembling words, after reading the unopened letters, sifting through what was left of his real mother and father’s lives and deaths, Tom had reacted in the way Isobel has come to know is uniquely his: calm, steady, logical. Now, words and glances sometimes betray a lingering sadness. But as soon as Isobel feels the tip of sadness, it disappears like a minnow darting beneath the water and she can’t tell if it’s from Daphne, or Tom, or both of them. Gone are the wasps of secrecy buzzing in the air around them, the taut string of tension between them all.
Isobel looks around her bedroom. From her window, she can see Broadsands. Daphne will be out walking with Hugh, who is slower now than he used to be, bony and laden with age, but faithful to the end. His strides will be shorter than Daphne’s: hers will be purposeful and wide as always. Sometimes, Isobel sees Daphne as Evelyn must have done from this window, her willowy body stooped against rain, or wilting in dry summer heat as she walks towards the narrow promenade.
Evelyn disappeared after giving the parcel to Tom. He tried to visit her a few times after Daphne had told him that she lived opposite Broadsands, but her door was bolted shut, a colourful fountain of junk mail visible behind the glass pane in the front door. A few weeks after, Tom had received a letter saying that Evelyn had passed away, and that the house Isobel stands in now had been left to him, along with the few possessions in it: framed photographs of Victoria, her hair dark like his and Beatrice’s, her smile secretive and romantic; a collection of clocks that clicked with each second and a trunk of old stock from what Daphne says was an antique shop. Tom spent the first few months of living in the house sanding down walls, pulling away its crumbling paper and wood and making it into a brighter, happier place to be. He worked quietly, showing Isobel items that he’d found now and again in cupboards and underneath tired furniture: a photograph of a child in front of Silenshore Castle, perhaps Evelyn; a browned piece of paper with Evelyn du Rêve written in swirling letters; a fragment of broken sapphire, sharp and glittering.
‘Are you excited?’ Beatrice asks Isobel, breaking into her thoughts.
‘I’m so excited,’ Isobel says. ‘I’ve wanted to go on this holiday for a very long time.’
‘Why are we only just going now, then?’ Beatrice asks, ever curious. Her eyes are round and bright, constantly questioning everything around her, then drinking up the answers.
Isobel sighs. ‘Oh, because although I wanted to go, there didn’t seem to be a right time. I wasn’t very well, and then as soon as I was better your daddy was opening his restaurant.’
‘I helped paint the walls,’ Beatrice says, swinging her lilac legs forwards and backwards.
‘I know,’ Isobel thinks of du Rêve’s, the restaurant that Tom opened a few years after they had inherited Evelyn’s house. The money that they were going to save for a house deposit no longer needed, they put their savings into a small but perfectly formed place near the castle and transformed it into Tom’s restaurant. The day that they all painted the walls a pale gold seems to be one of the first fully formed of Beatrice’s memories: paint in their hair, snatches of French bread and apples whenever they got hungry, a tiny roller for Beatrice’s miniature hands, Iris and Seth breezing in every now and again to comment on the colours and sing made-up rhymes about painting to Beatrice. ‘That was a good day, wasn’t it?’
Beatrice nods. ‘It was my favourite day.’ She lifts up her hand to feel her plaits. ‘I’m going to keep them neat.’ She grins as she says this. It’s a standing joke: her plaits always fall out way before the end of the day.
‘There’s a first time for everything,’ Isobel says. ‘Come on, let’s go downstairs and watch out for Grandpa.’
Graham arrives the moment he says he would, his suitcase a small navy-blue one that makes Isobel remember holidays from another life: caravans and hot chips doused in vinegar and ketchup and walks around tiny shops full of candles and sweets and things made from shells and glass.
‘All ready, Bea?’ he asks.
‘I’m ready, Grandpa!’ Beatrice points at her frog-shaped suitcase that stands in the corner of the lounge, and has done for over a week.
‘We’re just waiting for Tom and then we’ll set off. He’s just handing over a few things at the restaurant,’ Isobel says to her dad.
Tom arrives home minutes later, smelling of fresh mint and spilled red wine and warm, potent garlic. He pulls all the suitcases into the hallway and Isobel sees him glance through the window of the front door, towards Broadsands.
‘She could still come, you know,’ Isobel says. There’s a tug of something in her voice that even she can’t identify: more complicated than sadness, but softer than guilt.
Tom shakes his head. ‘I think she’ll be okay. She doesn’t like leaving Hugh or the house. I did ask her a few times. And it’s only a couple of days. She’ll be quite happy as long as we come back.’
Isobel looks up at him. ‘If you’re sure.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Then let’s go. Vienna beckons.’
They step outside into the pale-gold light and Isobel stands back and watches her family: Tom loading up the car methodically, her father telling Beatrice something about Viennese music, Beatrice looking up at him searchingly, insatiable questions forming on her small pink lips more quickly than she can ask them. The daylight rises behind the castle and the sea glitters in the distance like a thousand pieces of glass.
Today is the day they will be able to tick Vienna from their list.
Today, as every day, is a day for change.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks go to Charlotte Ledger, who always understands my writing so perfectly. I also want to thank everyone else at Harper Impulse, and Cherie Chapman for designing such a beautiful cover.
I’d like to mention two sources that were especially helpful when researching homes for unmarried mothers: The Baby Laundry for Unmarried Mothers by Angela Patrick and Rose Bell’s project on mother and baby homes in 1960s England.
Finally, love and thanks to my amazing family, for everything.
Hannah Emery
I studied English at the University of Chester and I have written stories for as long as I can remember. I love writing about how fragile the present is and how so much of it depends on chance events that took place years ago. My favourite things in life are my family, my friends, books, baking on a Saturday afternoon, going out for champagne and dinner and having cosy weekends away. I live in Blackpool with my husband and our two daughters.
Find out more at hannahcemery.wordpress.com and follow me on Twitter @hannahcemery.
Also by Hannah Emery
Secrets in the Shadows
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