by Susan Lewis
Stricken, Patty turned to Elaine.
‘What happened to her?’ Eva raged. ‘Is she even dead?’
‘Oh Eva, yes, of course she’s dead,’ Patty gasped. ‘We’d never have told you …’
‘Then for God’s sake, what is it?’
Patty’s eyes were full of dread.
‘What did you do to her?’ Eva demanded.
Patty flinched again. ‘I didn’t do anything … No one did …’
‘Then what are you hiding? What despicable lies have you been telling all these years …’
‘Eva, stop, please …’
‘No, you stop. I want to know the truth and if you don’t tell me right now, then so help me God …’
‘All right, all right,’ Patty shouted. ‘She killed herself. We didn’t want you to know, because the reason she did it … the reason …’ Her voice was shredding, she couldn’t go on.
Eva’s face had turned white. She could dimly feel herself starting to shake, and when she tried to speak she found she couldn’t. Elaine came to sit beside her and took her hand, but Eva’s eyes remained fixed on Patty. Their mother had committed suicide. She was saying the words to herself, but couldn’t quite grasp them. Her head was spinning, everything was blurring and fading. For a moment she thought she might be starting to pass out.
‘Why?’ she finally managed. ‘What made her …?’
Patty’s face was ravaged as she lifted it from her hands. ‘What does it matter now?’ she said brokenly. ‘It happened such a long time ago.’
‘Tell me why she did it.’
Shuddering with more sobs as she tried to catch her breath, Patty said, ‘She was depressed … After she had you she just couldn’t seem to get back on top. She’d try and for a while she was fine, but then the blackness would come over her again and there was nothing Daddy or I could do. She wouldn’t let us near her during those times, she wouldn’t look at you either; she just wanted to be on her own. The doctor gave her pills and sent her for counselling, but nothing ever seemed to work.’
Eva had become very still. The words were conjuring pictures she’d never seen before, of her mother in torment, turning her back on her children, withdrawing from the man she loved. They were nothing like the woman whose photos she had in her album. It wasn’t the same woman at all.
‘Sometimes she’d stand next to your bed watching you,’ Patty went on. ‘She didn’t speak, or move. We had no idea what was going through her mind, but we were terrified she’d do something to harm you.’
Eva’s heart turned over.
‘She never did,’ Patty said hastily, ‘but with the way she was we could never be sure what she might do. She hit me once, around the face, so we knew she was capable of lashing out. She used to hit Daddy a lot too, and throw things, then she’d go out and not come back for hours, sometimes even days. Usually she went to Granny’s, her own mother, and sometimes she’d take you with her. We knew you were safe when Granny was there, so we didn’t try to make her bring you back.’
Unable to imagine how traumatising it must have been for Patty, Eva could only look at her sister and wonder why she’d kept this locked up inside for so long.
‘We knew she was suffering from a severe post-natal depression,’ Patty continued, ‘she knew it too, but a diagnosis isn’t a cure and nothing, just nothing, ever seemed to get her over it. Then Granny died and it was … She just … couldn’t take any more.’
As she started to break down again Elaine went to hold her close, while Eva tried to move past the shock to a place where she could breathe again. They couldn’t be talking about the mother she’d known, because that woman had been beautiful and happy and used to swing her around and pretend she could fly. She baked birthday cakes and lit candles, read stories at bedtime and snuggled in with her after she’d had a bad dream. She was trying to picture that woman, to reassure herself that she had existed, but all she could see was the woman Patty had described.
Getting up from the sofa, she went to stand at the window. The rain was all but horizontal now, and the wind so fierce that the willows were bending almost to the ground. There seemed such a strange, other-worldly sense to everything, the way she was feeling, where she was, what she was hearing … In the end she turned around and heard her own voice like a ghostly echo saying, ‘How – how did she do it?’
Bringing her head up, Patty pushed away more tears as she said, ‘She took the car … No one knew because she was at home on her own that day. I was at school, you were … you were at nursery and … and …’
‘Here,’ Elaine said softly, handing her a tissue.
Taking it, Patty dabbed at her eyes. ‘Daddy went home at lunchtime,’ she continued, ‘and that was …’ She tried to catch her breath. ‘That was when he found the note. He called the police straight away.’ Putting a hand to her mouth as though to stifle a scream, she forced herself to go on. ‘It was already too late … She’d already … she was already …’
‘Sssh, ssh,’ Elaine soothed, patting her hands. ‘It’s all right.’
Tears were shining in Eva’s eyes as she watched them, and tried not to feel for what her sister had been through at such a tender age. She didn’t want to soften towards her – it had happened a long time ago and wasn’t going to change, or justify in any way what was happening now.
‘Daddy didn’t know,’ Patty pressed on, ‘until he got to the hospital, that you had been in the car too.’
Eva’s heart jolted.
‘You were thrown clear as the car went over,’ Patty whispered brokenly, ‘and you were hardly injured at all. Just cuts and bruises and concussion.’
Eva’s head started to spin. It was as though the world was dipping and swaying away from her. She’d caused the depression that had killed her mother, so was that why her mother had tried to kill her? Because she blamed her for ruining her life?
‘It turned out that she’d gone to pick you up from the nursery,’ Patty continued, ‘and we think, because of the timing, that she must have taken you home. We don’t know if she took you out of the car, then put you back in again, or if she left you there while she went inside to write the note. Maybe the note was already written … We have no way of knowing. The only thing we could be certain of was where and how she died, and that she had intended to do it. Why she took you with her we’ll never know, because there was nothing in the note to say that she meant to. The doctor said it was possible, if you were sleeping, that in her state of mind she’d even forgotten you were there.’
Eva could picture the cliff road where it had happened, the blind bend, the deep ravine … Her father had taken her there once, when she was in her teens, to show her where her mother had died. It was his way of trying to make her accept that her mother wouldn’t be coming back, and she guessed it was from that day that she had finally ceased to believe otherwise. It must have been so hard for him to be there, to watch her throw the flowers they’d brought down on to the rocks below. Had he imagined his wife breaking apart the way the stems had? Had he felt the shock and grief all over again? Patty hadn’t been there that day. It had been just the two of them, and Eva was remembering now how tightly her father had held her when they’d returned to the car. So tightly it had hurt, and she’d pushed him away. It wasn’t hard to imagine what had been going through his mind then; he’d even said, very softly, ‘I’m so lucky to have you.’
‘And Patty,’ she’d said.
‘Of course,’ he’d smiled, holding her face between his hands, ‘and Patty too.’
Looking at Patty now, she felt her heart expanding with so much emotion that it was hard to make herself speak. ‘I don’t understand,’ she managed in the end, ‘why you’ve never told me this before.’
Regarding her with swollen, bloodshot eyes, Patty said, ‘I know I probably should have, but at the time … You were so young, and Daddy felt you wouldn’t be able to understand.’
‘But what about later?’
‘We talked about it s
ometimes, Daddy and I, but he always ended up deciding that there was no need for you to know the truth. It wouldn’t bring Mummy back, he used to say, and so he didn’t see the point of telling you something that would only upset you and maybe make you resent Mummy, or feel afraid of her in some way.’
‘So instead I’m lied to and treated like a child long after …’
‘Eva, we held it back because we love you, you must understand that. It wasn’t … Eva, please don’t walk away.’
‘I’m sorry, but I don’t want to hear any more,’ Eva told her, reaching for her coat.
‘What about the note? Don’t you want to know what was in it?’
Eva stopped dead. Patty still had a note, her mother’s final words that she’d kept to herself all these years, as though she, Eva, had no right to it. ‘What does it say?’ she demanded. ‘Is she blaming me? Does she say I ruined her life?’
‘Of course not!’ Patty cried. ‘There was nothing like that in it at all. She doesn’t blame you, no one does.’
Eva looked at Elaine.
‘Your mother’s illness wasn’t anyone’s fault,’ Elaine said gently. ‘These things just happen sometimes.’
‘But if she’d never had me …’
‘You can’t think that way …’
‘It was what Daddy was always afraid of,’ Patty broke in, ‘that you’d feel responsible in some way, and you’re not. How could you be, when you were just a child?’
Eva’s eyes returned to Elaine.
‘Please don’t leave yet,’ Elaine implored. ‘I know this has come as a shock, so you should allow yourself some time to assimilate. Let me get you more tea, or perhaps something a little stronger?’
Eva shook her head. ‘I don’t want anything, thank you,’ she answered. ‘I just …’ She looked at Patty, then away again. ‘If you don’t mind,’ she said to Elaine, ‘I’d like to be on my own for a while.’
As she went to put her coat on, Elaine said, ‘If that’s what you want, then why don’t you stay here, by the fire? Patty and I can always go somewhere else, but we’ll be close by if there’s anything you want to ask. It’s a horrible day out there and you probably ought not to be driving with all this so fresh in your mind.’
Flinching inwardly at the words, Eva took a breath and finally ended up letting go of her coat.
Avoiding Patty’s eyes as she and Elaine left the room, Eva waited for the door to close before going to curl into a corner of the largest sofa. For a long, almost mesmeric time she sat staring into the fire, inhaling the perfumed air around her and trying to come to terms with the last few minutes. Having no memory of that time was making it seem unreal, as though it had happened in a film; or as if it were an item on the news about another family, another little girl. She tried to capture a sense of speed or terror; the feeling of being thrown, of falling against rocks, but nothing inside her stirred. Should she be glad of that? Would it help in some way to have a small flicker of recognition? Whether it would or not, there was none.
Closing her eyes, she let her head fall back against the cushions. She was thinking of the three photos in her album that showed her mother looking happy and carefree. Because her memories had been formed around those pictures, she was finding it hard now to see her mother any other way. Was it possible Patty had lied again? Had she made it all up in order to distract Eva from the terrible truth they were living through? It hardly seemed likely, but even so, if Elaine hadn’t been in the room maybe she would be prepared to think the worst.
Aware of a growing tightness in her chest that was making it hard to breathe, she sat forward and put her head in her hands. She wished she could understand why she, Patty and her father hadn’t been enough for her mother; why her love for them hadn’t made living seem worthwhile, but she guessed depression didn’t allow its victim to see things rationally. It only stole into them like a silent, baleful shadow, moving slowly, inexorably all the way through them, gradually closing down all their hopes and dreams, until finally there was no light left. She recognised the feeling of futility and despair, the dread of going on, because it was how she felt in the dead of night when she lay awake thinking of Don and longing for him with all her heart.
There were so many questions that still needed to be answered, but for the moment she only wanted to stay quietly where she was, allowing the strange feeling of connection that had begun stirring inside her to do what it would. She’d never be able to see her mother, or hear, or touch her, yet the few happy memories she had of her seemed to be wrapping themselves around her like gentle, loving arms.
Was she here in the shadows of this room? Did she know what was happening at this moment, in the lives of her daughters? What would she say, or do, if it was in her power to speak or act? Though Eva would never have any answers to that, she felt, in spite of the empty room she was in, that she wasn’t alone. At least not for these moments, which was why she couldn’t, wouldn’t, move for fear of what would be lost if she did.
In the small kitchen next door Elaine was gazing out of the window, while Patty spoke quietly to Livvy on the phone.
‘I understand Coral hasn’t taken care of the shop on her own before,’ she was saying, ‘but I need you to be able to come home to the barn …’
‘But why?’
‘I’ll explain when I see you. Is Coral with you now?’
‘She’s just popped out.’
‘OK, well if she’s not happy about holding the fort you’ll have to lock up for the rest of the day.’
‘Mu-um! I’m right in the middle …’
‘I need to talk to you about Eva and the chat I’ve had with her this morning.’
‘You’ve seen her?’ Livvy said, sounding shocked. ‘I thought she was going to Elaine’s.’
‘That’s where I’m calling from. Now, please do as I ask and be ready to come to the house when I call again.’
‘OK, if you say so, but before you go I think you should know that I’ve told Jake about you and Don and he’s on his way home.’
Somehow Patty managed not to groan.
‘He’s not happy,’ Livvy went on. ‘He’s definitely with Eva on this, so I don’t think he’ll be staying at the barn.’
Not allowing herself a moment to feel jealous of her children’s loyalty to Eva, Patty said, ‘Call him back and tell him he has to go home.’
‘I can try, but like I said …’
‘I heard what you said, now, please just do as you’re told.’
As she rang off Elaine went to open the outside door. A moment later Don came in, looking worried and uneasy.
Patty kept her distance as she said, ‘I hope I’ve done the right thing. I just thought it would be best if you were here.’
‘Where is she?’ he asked, seeming to understand that any physical contact with Patty in front of Elaine would be wrong.
‘In there,’ Patty answered, pointing to the other door.
‘Maybe I should go and check on her,’ Elaine suggested. ‘I can’t see that it would do any harm.’
However, before she could get to her feet the door opened and Eva came into the room.
The instant she saw Don her face tightened, and whatever she’d been about to say seemed to die on her lips.
‘Are you OK?’ Patty asked awkwardly.
Turning to her, Eva said, ‘I’d like to see the note.’
Patty’s eyes went down. ‘I – I don’t have it any more,’ she said.
Eva stared at her harshly. ‘More lies, Patty?’ she challenged.
‘No!’ Patty cried. ‘It … I don’t know what happened to it, but I can remember everything it said. I can tell you …’
Eva’s tone was scathing as she said, ‘You’re the last person I want to hear speaking my mother’s words,’ and turning away she went to reach for her coat.
‘Are you sure you want to go now?’ Elaine protested. ‘There’s so much …’
‘I’m sorry,’ Eva interrupted, ‘maybe we can talk another time
, just the two of us.’
Stepping forward, Don said, ‘Why don’t you let me drive you?’
Eva’s eyes turned cold. ‘I’m quite capable,’ she responded.
With a quick glance at Patty and Don, Elaine said, ‘I’ll come to the door with you.’
Left alone in the kitchen, Patty closed her eyes as she took an unsteady breath. ‘I thought … I don’t know what sort of reaction I expected. She seemed so … I don’t know … Just not like the Eva we know.’
‘She’s been through a lot,’ he reminded her. ‘It’s bound to be taking its toll.’
Patty nodded and sighed, then suddenly froze as Elaine shouted, ‘Patty! Patty! Come quick.’
Don was first through the door with Patty close behind, already terrified of what they were about to find.
‘So where’s Eva now?’ Livvy demanded, confused and anxious.
‘At home,’ Patty replied. ‘She was insistent that she’d just tripped and fallen on the step …’
‘I should go to her,’ Livvy interrupted, reaching for her bag.
‘No, wait …’
‘You can’t just leave her on her own!’
‘She’s not on her own. Don’s with her. Elaine was sure she’d blacked out for a moment so we refused to allow her to drive herself. Do you know when she last ate?’
Livvy shook her head. Her agitation was almost infectious as she tried to cope with a worsening situation. ‘I keep making her meals,’ she said, ‘but all she seems to manage is one or two mouthfuls, which is hardly surprising when you think of what she’s going through. And now this, about her mother, Granny … I don’t understand why you had to tell her now.’
Feeling the rebuke like a slap, Patty said, ‘I didn’t mean to. When I went over there I thought she was ready to talk about what’s happened. It turned out she was asking Elaine … Oh God, Livvy, I wish I’d never had to tell her, because I still believe the same as Grandpa did, that it’s not something she needed to know.’
‘So instead you lied to her?’
‘It wasn’t so much a lie as trying to spare her the truth.’
‘Whatever spin you put on it, as far as she’s concerned you lied about that and you lied about Don.’
