Not today, though — for one thing, it was Christmas Day, and for another, he’d have to leave the sign at the swimming hole first. Lily would not know she was pregnant for — well, a few weeks, he supposed. He could wait a day.
It then occurred to him that Rowan might not be so pleased to hear that he was not Lily’s only lover. But he could hardly be jealous. Rowan and Lily couldn’t even have a proper relationship let alone a future together. Ellis Blythe would sooner cut off his own arm …
James could not tell where the idea came from. It seemed to seep into his mind as if from an underground stream, leaching its way upwards from a dark cave. A trickle of an idea that once it found the way in began to surge and rush.
No. James held up a hand, Canute-like, in his mind. The idea was impossible.
But then having sex with Lily had always seemed impossible, and here he was, in this predicament because the impossible had come true, like one of those diabolical fairytales where what you wish for never turns out well. Where you’re punished soundly for your greed, your gluttony or your pride.
James heard his mother calling him. Christmas Day. Presents under the tree. The king and carols on the wireless. Oh, come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant.
He’d go out for a walk — he often did, nothing strange in that. And tomorrow, he’d bring Rowan some carved slices of goose, a few roasted vegetables and a serving of pudding, perhaps the one with the silver piece in it.
And then he and Rowan would talk.
CHAPTER 35
mid-September
The bracken fern on the hills was bronze now, the berries on the hawthorn beginning to colour. Goldfinches were feasting on the thistle seed that flew in downy clouds up to the sky.
Autumn was here, but it did not feel like that. The days were still long and warm, and full of cricket chirp and soft, grass-scented air. Lying there in the wildflower meadow, with the dandelions and daisies and starry red campion, April could almost believe that time had paused for a while, to let her and Jack just be at ease.
She had long since given up trying to persuade him into an indoor bed. Even the woods felt too closed in for him now, he said, and the garden should be for working, so the meadow it was. April did not have his tolerance for scratchy grass and bumpy ground, so she had taken to bringing with her the blanket she’d found in the attic, rolled up and tied with one leg of an old pair of pantyhose, the other leg having been cut into strips and put to use in staking tomatoes.
The tomatoes had sprung up in Kit’s garden, seeded from those that had fallen over-ripe or been bird-pecked out of last year’s crop. April’s father had always grown tomatoes, so April knew how to stake the plants and pick out the laterals so that they did not get too bushy. You want them to put their energy into growing fruit not leaves, her father had told her. The tomatoes were sweet and full of flavour — nothing like their bland supermarket counterparts. April liked to eat them sliced, with salt and pepper, olive oil and a drop of treacly balsamic vinegar that had been a present from Sunny. Jack preferred them plain and whole. ‘Come to the cottage any time and pick some,’ April had told him. ‘I don’t like being that close to houses,’ he’d replied. ‘Even ones lived in by you.’
He’s been so good to me, thought April. So kind and patient. That day in the garden, he’d kissed her back, taste of strawberry on his tongue, but when she had reached for him, he’d caught her hand and asked her if she was sure. ‘Of course I’m bloody not,’ she’d replied. ‘But I want to very badly and, right now, that’s enough. If you want to, that is,’ she’d added, searching his face, suddenly anxious. ‘Glory be,’ he’d said, and that had been the end of talk for the afternoon.
But it had not been entirely easy and carefree. There were moments she felt as if she were being dismantled, taken apart bit by bit like a child’s toy and reassembled into something she did not recognise. That one day she might wake up to find she’d become another woman entirely, a woman half owl and half flowers, someone else’s creation, not her own. Or she would be overtaken by a sense of doom — she’d made the wrong choice and God or Fate was busy lining up some kind of punishment, setting a trap for her to fall in. When she felt like this, Jack would just hold her until she was steady again. He never minded how long that took.
Then there were wonderful moments, when she felt like she was soaring, that her body and all her senses had been given wings. She could see now that she’d been right, that all that restlessness, those phantom tastes and smells, had been her old self, the true April, pushing upwards like green shoots through the darkness in which she’d buried them. For five years she’d insisted everything be filtered through a half-light, grey and dull, watery and weak. Now, the world warmed and sang, colours were brilliant, smells heady, and every touch and taste voluptuous. When Jack’s hands and mouth were exploring, and he was moving with her, inside her, April felt connected with the essence of every growing and living thing around her. She felt that she, too, could call the birds down to her from the sky. Or fly with them, high as she liked.
‘That cloud looks like a swan,’ she said.
‘So it does.’
‘Have you ever eaten a swan?’
‘Swans belong to the king.’
‘To the queen, you mean.’
‘To the current reigning monarch. Swans are royal property. Once upon a time, you could be hanged for poaching them.’
‘Now, I suppose you just get a fine. Or a few days in jail, as a deterrent.’
The swan cloud had diffused and elongated out of shape. A beaky tropical flower now, perhaps. Or just a cloud.
‘All things considered,’ said Jack, ‘I’d rather hang than go to jail.’
‘In God’s name, why?’ April propped herself on one elbow, frowned down at him. ‘Hanging’s a terrible death!’
‘It’s over quicker than a jail term,’ he said, with a shrug.
‘Yes, but you get out of jail alive. Quite a difference.’
‘I wouldn’t survive in jail. Four small walls would destroy me.’
‘I don’t like thinking about you dead,’ April said, after a moment.
‘Then don’t think about it.’ He reached up, stroked her cheek. ‘I’m not dead. I’m right here.’
April rolled onto her back and stared up at the lamb-white clouds renewing themselves over and over in the sky. The irony was, she thought, that he had no idea how often she was using that as a strategy. On the list of items she was not thinking about were: Oran and his whereabouts, whether he was safe, whether he would ever return; whether she wanted the house sold after all; and if it did sell, whether she should go home or — a new thought and thoroughly unformed — stay.
Last on the list, buried deep down, was Dan. She had loved Dan, loved him more than anyone until Ben was born. And that love was still there, she could feel it, like a small, warm creature nestled within her, sleeping.
April had no doubt that Dan still loved his first son, his dead boy Ben, as much as ever, as much as she did. But when Dan thought of her now, was it with any affection? Or had she killed any residual fondness for her as surely as if she’d wrung its neck and hammered its corpse to the wall of an old wooden shed?
She would write to Dan. He deserved to know how things were with her. Even if that knowledge revived some of his pain and regret, Dan would prefer a better ending for her than the one he’d seen her heading towards when she left him. Which meant, April realised, that she’d answered her previous question. Of course Dan still had affection for her. His capacity for love was boundless, and always would be.
‘Do you still love her?’ April asked, quietly.
‘Who?’
‘The woman who drowned.’
‘What makes you think I loved her?’
April was taken aback. ‘Because you dived into a flooded river to save her.’
He shook his head. ‘That wasn’t love. That was — pride. Wounded pride.’
‘What do you mean?’
&nb
sp; ‘I’d been trying to help her. Trying to make her see what she had, what life could give her, and I was arrogant enough to believe I’d been successful. She proved me wrong. Proved by choosing death that she hadn’t heard or cared for a word I’d said.’
‘Are you saying she committed suicide?’
‘Why do we need to label death with terms like that?’ Jack sounded irritated. ‘She died. Does the how make any difference?’
‘Well — the law likes to be quite clear on whether it was suicide or murder.’
‘The law is an invention,’ he said. ‘Made up because people need to believe that bad deeds will always be punished. Religion, too, invented just for that reason. Laws and divine retribution. All because people want someone to blame when things go wrong. Because of a need to know that someone will pay.’
April remembered the driver of the car that had hit Ben. A grandfather, helping out with after school pick-up. Because he’d been old, there’d been some question about whether he’d seen Ben, and for a moment there, April had wanted desperately for the police to find the man at fault. But he’d been so shattered by the accident, had crumpled like a rag and sobbed when he’d seen Ben’s body on the road, seen there was no hope. April knew that she had ruined his life, too. She could not wish more suffering on him.
‘Do you regret not being able to save her?’ she asked.
His had always been a hard face to read. But she could read it now — see the hollowing out behind the eyes, memory travelling backwards on a dark train, to a cliff edge where there is no buffer, nothing to stop the plunge.
‘I do,’ he said. ‘It’s the one regret I do keep with me. I need to. I need to remember.’
‘Remember what?’
She saw his expression shift. Sadness now had a bitter edge.
‘I took it for granted that I would be able to save her. How arrogant that was. As if I knew better than she did about what was good for her. That’s what I need to remember — that I couldn’t help her. That she didn’t even want my help.’
‘But that doesn’t mean you can’t help others,’ said April. ‘You’ve certainly helped me.’
‘Have I?’
‘Of course you have! I wouldn’t be where I am now without you!’
‘And so my job’s done?’ It sounded like an accusation.
‘What are you trying to get me to say? That I no longer need you? Because that’s not true!’
‘You enjoy being with me. That’s not the same as needing me.’
April was at a loss, and wary; she had not seen him like this. ‘I’m not sure what you’re driving at,’ she said, carefully. ‘I’m not sure of your point.’
‘Exactly.’ From bitter to furious. ‘What is the point of me? Round and round I go, but what exactly is the point!’
‘Jack!’
But he was on his feet, buttoning his shirt with angry haste, not caring if he missed some. And he began to stride away, boots in hand, too eager to be gone to put them on, a dog and a rustle of grass heads in his wake.
‘Oh, hell.’
April pulled on her dress and sandals, snatched up the blanket and ran after him. She did not catch hold of his arm because she guessed he was too angry, and would only throw her off. Instead, she walked just behind him until his pace began to slow. Finally, with a sigh of resignation or defeat, or perhaps just simple fatigue, he halted.
They were at the edge of a cornfield. Ears harvested, the corn stalks were shrivelling, dry and brown now as the grass stalks that grew through them. But out of the wall of stalks sprawled the green goblet heads and red flowers of poppies, into the light of the grassy break. April, feeling she should wait for him to speak, slid a papery bloom between her fingers and lifted its face to hers. How did that poem go, the one about the poppies in Flanders field? All she could remember was a fragment: Short days ago we lived.
‘I knew there was a reason I wear these boots,’ he said.
He raised his bare right foot, so she could see the thorn embedded in it.
‘Ouch. Stay still.’ As gently as she could, she extracted it. A single drop of blood oozed.
‘Rose?’ She held out the thorn to him.
‘Blackberry.’
‘I picked some the other day. They were delicious.’
‘There are some near here,’ he said. ‘Do you want to see?’
A peace offering, April thought. Or perhaps when his anger was gone, it was forgotten. Her relief that he was reconciled to her was such that it hardly mattered.
He was right, she knew. She did not need him. She would go on without him because now she knew how. Now, she knew that she could feel loss and not be destroyed by it. But she also knew that if she let him go, a great part of her current happiness would go with him. He spent only two days with her each week and those days were getting shorter, the darkness gathering in ever earlier, shadows encroaching inch by inch. To miss even an allotted minute seemed a loss much greater, time never to be regained, a hole never to be refilled. Happiness had been scarce, so now it was precious, and April wanted to grab as much of it as she could and hold onto it for as long as possible.
Perhaps she should start imagining a future without him in it, so she could be prepared? Perhaps that would be wise? Right now, though, there was only one answer to be given.
‘Yes, please,’ she said.
‘I’ll put my boots on first,’ he said. ‘Or I guarantee I’ll stand on a shard of flint next. That’s stuff’s sharp as a bloody glass knife.’
The brambles twined among two hedgerows that bordered a narrow path. Their proximity and sheltered position trapped the heat, and the berries were as fat as if they’d been grown in a greenhouse. Perfectly ripe, they dissolved in April’s mouth, tart and sweet at the same time, and so juicy that her fingers were quickly stained dark red.
‘My hands are beginning to resemble Lady Macbeth’s.’ She held them up to show him. ‘Out, out damp spot, as my father used to say.’
‘The Lady had blood on her hands?’
‘Yes,’ said April. ‘And it drove her mad.’
‘Poor woman,’ he said. ‘Nobody deserves that kind of torment, no matter what they’ve done.’
April wrapped her arms around his waist, leaned her head against his chest. He was as warm as ever, and smelled like earth and cornstalks and grass.
‘I know you want me to be happy,’ she said. ‘But you have to know I want the same for you. I want you to know how much you mean to me, how much you will always mean to me. I’ve been fortunate to have wonderful people in my life, and just because some of them aren’t in my life any longer doesn’t make them any less wonderful. Doesn’t make them any less important to me.’
She felt his chest rise and slowly fall, his breath skimming her hair.
‘You’re kind,’ he said. ‘And you’re right, too. It’s just that at times I find it hard to remember why I keep on. Even on days like this, all I can see is what’s dead and brown, and all I can feel is the hint of coolness in the air. And I wonder if this winter will be the one that will defeat me.’
April hugged him tighter, and he returned it, arms encircling her with a strength she could not imagine failing.
‘I find myself wishing,’ she said, ‘that we had nothing else to do but lie together in the sun. That we didn’t have to think about the future, or make plans for it. A foolish wish, I know, but so, so tempting.’
‘I know that wish well. It’s my faithful friend. But I can’t entertain it for too long or I’ll go mad.’
April raised her head and met his eye. ‘I have to make plans. I don’t want to, but I must.’
‘Then make them.’
‘Even if they might mean things change?’
‘Things are changing as we speak. That’s how it works.’
He smiled down, kissed her once, gently.
‘I might have my moments of doubt,’ he said, ‘but fundamentally I do believe that whatever happens, we have a choice about how we respond. We ca
n fight, run, give up, accept — we can even choose to do nothing and simply endure. Our choice. No matter what happens.’
‘Don’t give up.’ April kissed him back, less gently. ‘Promise me.’
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘That is the promise I made to myself on the riverbank. And despite what I might say in a dark moment, I can assure you — I haven’t forgotten it.’
He took gentle hold of her wrist, kissed her juice-stained fingers one by one.
‘It was suicide,’ he said. ‘If you were worried about what I said earlier. There’s no blood on anyone’s hands.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’m glad.’
‘Including yours.’
Her reply came after a pause, but it was sure. ‘I know.’
CHAPTER 36
late September
There was a red car outside Sunny’s. Not Edward’s Alvis, which was further up the lane, but a low sports car. A Porsche convertible, April saw, parked askew in Sunny’s short driveway, suggesting the driver had braked in a hurry.
Sunny’s front door was ajar. April knocked but there was no reply, so she walked in. Low voices led her to the door of a room she’d never entered, Sunny’s bedroom. Before she could knock again, the door was opened by a woman April knew instantly must be one of Sunny’s daughters.
‘Oh!’
The woman stopped short. She was in her fifties, blonde, slim and elegant, wearing the kind of dress and shoes that said she and the country were nodding acquaintances at best. She was frowning, and April felt the same blood-rush of panic that had hit her when Edward had called with the news.
‘How is she?’ said April. ‘Is she all right?’
‘I’m fine.’
The voice was strong enough for some of April’s panic to subside.
The blonde woman rolled her eyes.
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