The Shadow Year

by Hannah Richell

  ‘What do you think women did years ago? Race off to Mothercare and fill a shopping trolley with disposable nappies and baby lotion? If you think about it, the most important things that the baby will need are already here: milk, shelter and more than enough adults to nurture and care for it.’

  ‘But a baby?’ She is incredulous. ‘We can’t raise a baby here’

  Simon rubs his chin again. ‘I think you’re coming at this all wrong, Kat. Maybe this isn’t the problem you’re perceiving it to be.’ He is visibly warming to his idea; she can see a faint gleam of excitement in his eyes. ‘Maybe this is an opportunity. It’s new life, Kat. It should be embraced. It was meant for us, as part of our challenge here at the cottage. This baby might be the best thing that happens to Freya, to you, to me. We can raise the child in a new kind of family. We’ll learn from our parents’ mistakes and do things differently.’ He smiles and puts a hand out to touch her arm. ‘We’ll do it together.’

  Together? Is he dreaming? Kat wants to shake him. ‘You won’t help us?’

  Simon looks out across the still waters of the lake. ‘Of course I’ll help . . . but not with money for an abortion.’

  Kat’s cheeks flare an angry red. ‘It should be Freya’s decision. It’s her body.’

  ‘Yes, but what decision can she make if she is already more than four months along and there is no money?’ He jumps down off the log and offers a hand to Kat. She doesn’t want to accept it but he holds it there and in the end she takes it, unsure whether he even notices the tremble of her own hand. He is rocking backwards and forwards on his feet with impatience. ‘Let’s get back to it. There isn’t too much more to do. Then I’ll talk to Freya.’

  Kat turns crestfallen to a branch as white and brittle as bone. She snaps it from a larger limb and hurls it onto the growing pile of kindling. She is filled with fury. She can’t believe Simon’s reaction. She looks across at him wrestling with a huge branch and sees that he is visibly buoyed by the news, his chest puffed up like a cockerel. Every so often he glances up at the house, shakes his head and smiles. As she watches him she realises with a creeping horror that keeping the baby – something she hasn’t even considered until now – is the worst possible thing that can happen. A living, growing baby will be a physical connection that will exist between Simon and Freya, for ever. Something she will never be able to break. As she wrestles with the tangled branches she feels the seed of bitterness lodged in her core take root; it grows and spreads, hidden inside her like the sleeping vegetation all around, just waiting to spring into life and roam across the landscape. She eyes the huge trunk sprawled before her. Maybe it would have been better if it hadn’t missed her after all.

  Kat removes her boots to enter the kitchen and finds Freya at the range, filling a pan with water. Simon enters the room behind her then moves on to Freya, reaching out to squeeze her shoulder. ‘Good girl,’ he says, eyeing the bread and jam lying on the plate beside the sink, ‘you’ve got to keep your strength up now, haven’t you?’

  Freya spins, her panic-stricken gaze darting from Simon to Kat. In her sister’s eyes Kat sees one shocked question: He knows?

  Kat nods slowly and with a heavy heart, she turns and leaves the room. You win, she thinks. You have him. I can’t do this any more.

  17

  LILA

  March

  Lila has just reached the end of another back-breaking day in the cottage when she decides enough is enough. She can’t let this thing between her and Tom fester a moment longer.

  The morning after Valentine’s Day, when she’d sat up until dawn turning the shocking, new detail of her fall over and over in her head, she’d been incapable of anything but complete withdrawal from him. He’d tried to pull close, tried to gather her up into his arms after their night together but she’d remained cold and distant and had ushered him out of the cottage just as soon as she’d been able to. She’d seen his look of confusion and he’d asked her what was wrong, but she’d had no reassurances for him and frankly she’d been glad to see him go, terrified that if he didn’t, she’d blurt out the fears running riot in her head.

  But it doesn’t seem to matter; whether he is there at the cottage with her or not, the fear remains. She has to know the truth about the fall. She has to know the part he played. Grabbing her phone, she stomps out over the ridge and across the meadow towards her car.

  The evening is drawing in as she hurtles down the track and drives the twisting country lanes, searching for a spot where her mobile phone has reception. She is halfway to Little Ramsdale when a couple of bars spring to life on the screen. She hits the hazard lights and pulls onto the verge, scrolling for Tom’s number.

  It rings and rings and she is about to give up when his voice floods through the receiver. ‘Hello,’ he shouts. ‘Lila?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me.’ She can hear raucous laughter, music blaring and the clinking of glasses in the background.

  ‘Is everything OK?’

  ‘Where are you?’ she asks.

  ‘In the pub.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘What’s up? Are you OK?’

  ‘Yes, I just thought . . . I wanted . . .’ She takes a deep breath. ‘I don’t know.’ She is suddenly unsure. She hadn’t imagined the conversation playing out like this.

  ‘Hang on,’ shouts Tom, so loudly she has to hold the phone away from her ear, ‘I can’t hear you. I’m going outside.’

  Lila hears Tom’s muffled words followed by the teasing reply of one of his friends and gradually the background noises fade away until there is nothing but the low thrum of London traffic.

  ‘Are you still there?’ he asks. ‘Sorry, the football’s on and it’s bloody noisy in there.’

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘Everything OK?’

  She swallows and stares out through the windscreen into the darkness. How does she say it? How does she ask if it was him? If he was there with her on the day she fell? If he was the one she remembers chasing after her, his hands at her back, tripping her up and sending her toppling down the stairs? How does she say it out loud?

  ‘Lila?’

  ‘I’m still here.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  The faraway roar of a crowd erupting at a goal filters through the phone. The sound makes her feel not just a couple of hundred miles away but a million. Here she is agonising about the worst thing that’s ever happened to her and there he is enjoying a lads’ night out in the pub. ‘Nothing,’ she says, ‘I was just phoning to say hi.’ She curses her cowardice.

  ‘Oh.’ He sounds surprised. ‘Right.’ Silence hangs between them. ‘I thought maybe you were calling to say you were coming home.’

  She shakes her head. ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘I see.’

  Lila takes a breath. ‘And you’re OK?’

  ‘Yep.’ He sounds so brusque – suddenly not a bit like the Tom she knows. There is another pause and then Tom is speaking again, his words coming in a rush. ‘Look, I wasn’t planning on saying this tonight but as you’ve called . . . I think you should know that I’ve decided to stay away. It’s clear from the way things were left after Valentine’s Day that you don’t want me there so I’m not going to keep racing up there and bothering you. The way we said goodbye that last time . . . well, it hurt, Lila. I can’t keep doing this. You know where I am, when you’re ready . . .’

  Lila bristles. Tom is hurt? Isn’t she the one who’s supposed to be hurt and angry here? Silence extends across the telephone line. She wants to say something. She wants to ask him about the fall but the words still won’t come.

  ‘I should probably get back to the boys. It’s my round.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You know where I am. I’ll be waiting.’ There is another pause. ‘Take care of yourself, Lila.’

  The dial tone comes before she can say another word.

  Lila sits there on the verge a while longer, the orange lights of her car flashing on and off, alternately illu
minating then hiding one small patch of hedgerow. She doesn’t know how long she stays watching the undergrowth appear and disappear, flash orange to black, orange to black, but eventually she turns the key in the ignition, spins the car around and takes the track all the way back to the cottage.

  It’s the first night in a while that she wishes she hadn’t thrown her pills away. She tosses and turns, fretting over her conversation with Tom and eventually, when sleep does arrive, it is filled with a reel of disturbing dreams. The images flicker and race across her shuttered eyelids.

  She dreams of her father, seated beside her at the kitchen table, his face twisted with frustration as they pore over her homework. ‘You have to dedicate yourself to this, Lila,’ he says, banging his fist on the table, his dark eyes flashing. ‘You have to commit.’ And the words well up in her: What about your dedication . . . your commitment, to your wife . . . to your family? But he has gone and her words are lost like dust on a breeze.

  She dreams of a woman drifting through the cottage crooning soft lullabies, accompanied by the papery rustle of honesty seed heads, caught in the waft of a current as she passes by.

  She dreams of running down an endless landing, the sound of footsteps chasing her and the shock of hands at her back, tugging at her, sending her tumbling down into a void of indescribable loss. Just like her. The words echo through the corridors of her sleep, making her twist and turn, so that she wakes in the morning still tired and with the taste of grief lying heavy on her tongue.

  She lies there for a moment, curled in the antique bed, and knows that she can’t face another day of hard physical labour or paint fumes. She needs a break. She wants to walk. William has been inviting her for weeks, even drawn a map of how to find his place on foot, but she’s always found another job to prevent her from visiting. But now she imagines sitting in William’s warm, creaking kitchen with its shining copper pans and pretty check curtains, Evelyn knitting at the table with a warm cat curled in her lap and Rosie stretched at her feet, and knows it’s where she wants to be. She’s sick of her own company and fed up with worrying about Tom and the fall so, after wrapping herself in a warm jumper and a woollen hat and scarf, she strikes out up the hillside, her head down, her feet stomping across the claggy terrain, only once in a while lifting her head to check her bearings against William’s hand-drawn map.

  It’s a day for being outside, the air damp and cool, the sun a yellow orb still low in the sky. The bluebells are late to bloom in the Peak District and she notices their lush green stems and drooping blue trumpets as she walks, stooping to pick a handful before continuing on over the moors.

  Higher up, she stops for a rest on an old stone wall, removes the hat which is too hot now and making her head itch, then presses on and is surprised when she makes it to the farm in just over an hour. She is greeted on arrival by Rosie’s delighted barks and a pretty ceramic sign on one of the gateposts welcoming her to Mackenzie Farm. As she walks through the yard, bursts of cheery yellow daffodils wave at her from their flowerbeds. The scene is a far cry from the snowy vista she remembers on her last, unexpected visit.

  ‘Well, well,’ calls William, appearing from behind a large green tractor, wiping his hands on a dirty, oil-stained cloth. ‘So you decided to pay us a visit after all?’

  She smiles. ‘Is that all right?’

  ‘Of course. Just wait till Evelyn sees you.’ Rosie wheels in circles at her feet. ‘Come on, Rosie, let’s get the poor girl inside. She’s probably desperate for a cuppa.’

  They find Evelyn in the kitchen where she greets Lila like an old friend, tears springing in her pale grey eyes. ‘Oh my dear girl,’ she says, gripping her arm, ‘you came back.’

  ‘Of course I did. I brought you these,’ she adds, holding out the small bouquet of bluebells. ‘Besides, I told you last time . . . I had to come back to see your jewellery.’

  Evelyn beams at her and accepts the small bouquet. ‘They’re lovely. Thank you. I’ll take you upstairs, just as soon as we’ve had that cup of tea.’

  ‘I’m on it, Mum,’ says William, reaching for the blue and white striped teapot.

  After tea and a little small talk, Evelyn leads her up the creaking wooden staircase then pulls her into the tiny room where Lila had first seen the desk of strange tools and implements. Evelyn ignores the table and moves instead to a low wooden chest in the far corner of the room. ‘I keep my treasure in here.’ She blows a thin layer of dust from the lid of the trunk then opens it to reveal two wooden jewellery boxes nestled amongst piles of old photographs, postcards, letters and trinkets. ‘I haven’t looked in here for such a long time . . .’

  As Evelyn pulls out the boxes, Lila can’t help herself; she reaches for one of the nearest photographs and studies the faces in the picture. ‘Is this you?’ she asks, pointing to a dark-haired lady in a patterned housecoat.

  Evelyn looks at the photo, her eyes clouded with confusion. It takes her a moment but eventually her face breaks with a warm smile of recognition. ‘Yes, that’s me . . . and that’s my Albert,’ she says, pointing to the tall man in a flat cap and baggy corduroy trousers at her side.

  ‘You made a very handsome couple.’

  ‘Thank you, dear. He was a good man.’

  Lila peers more closely at the smaller figure to their right and tries to identify the outline of William in the faded image of the skinny boy squinting up at the camera, with his dark hair and impressively flared jeans. She laughs. ‘Look at William. Doesn’t he look different?’

  ‘Yes, doesn’t he?’ says Evelyn glancing across at the photo. ‘He was a funny-looking boy back then. So skinny . . . all ears and legs. Ah, now here we go. Here’s my treasure.’ She passes the first box to Lila and watches as she rummages with excitement through the silver bangles and brooches and necklaces contained within.

  ‘You made these?’ Lila asks in disbelief. ‘But they’re gorgeous, Evelyn. You have a real talent.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’

  Lila holds up to the light a necklace with a tiny, silver forget-me-not flower pendant hanging from the chain. ‘Well I think they’re absolutely lovely.’

  Evelyn’s papery cheeks blush a delicate pink. ‘Thank you, my dear. You can keep that one if you like?’

  ‘Oh, but I couldn’t. They’re yours.’ She returns the necklace to the jewellery box then turns to meet Evelyn’s gaze. As their eyes connect the elderly woman reaches out and strokes her cheek with the rough palm of her hand and Lila has the strangest feeling that it’s not her she’s looking at but someone else, someone far beyond her skin.

  ‘I’m so glad you came back,’ she says. ‘We did miss you.’

  ‘Before you go,’ William says, leading her from the farmhouse towards one of the barns, ‘I thought you might like to see the lambs. There’s a newborn I’m handfeeding.’ He gives her a sideways glance. ‘Want to help?’

  ‘Sure,’ she says. ‘I’d love to. What do I do?’

  ‘Follow me.’

  William opens the door to the barn and Lila enters its warm, earthy interior. Inside she can hear the soft shuffling and bleating of sheep. ‘She’s over here,’ he beckons, moving past pens of ewes and lambs to a corner of the barn where a white fluffy ball lies alone in a heap of straw.

  ‘Poor thing,’ she says, ‘she’s so tiny. Why do you have to feed her by hand?’

  ‘The ewe died in labour.’

  ‘Oh,’ says Lila, ‘that’s sad.’

  He shrugs then reaches for a bottle and Lila watches as he fills it with milk and twists the lid on, giving it a good shake. ‘Here, I’ll show you how to do it.’

  Lila is nervous but she follows William’s instructions, kneels down in the straw and lets him place the front legs of the animal over her thighs. At the sight of the bottle the lamb seems to know what to do. She head-butts Lila, eager to get to the milk and almost knocks her over. Lila laughs and lowers the teat to the lamb’s muzzle and soon the animal is tugging and sucking away happily
with greedy slurping sounds. ‘This is amazing,’ she says in hushed awe.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ agrees William.

  Lila holds the creature in her arms, closes her eyes and breathes in the sweet scent of straw and the animal’s warm, musky fleece. The lamb is so small and so fragile and it occurs to Lila that the last time she held anything this new and precious had been at the hospital . . . only then there had been no wriggling, warm, life-filled body . . . no heart hammering palpably just beneath her fingers.

  She can’t help it. As Lila remembers, she begins to cry. The tears stream down her cheeks and embarrassed, she tries to bury her face in lamb’s fleece so that William won’t see, but it doesn’t work. ‘Oh, Lila,’ he says. She feels him shift beside her, awkward in the presence of her grief.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she sniffs, ‘ignore me. I’m an idiot.’

  ‘No you’re not. Don’t say that.’ He reaches for the lamb and returns her gently to the straw, then pulls Lila to her feet. Before she knows it she is in his arms, William patting her on the back helplessly, over and over. ‘There, there,’ he says, soothing her as if she were a distressed animal, ‘there, there. Let it out. It’s time to let it all out.’

  18

  MARCH

  1981

  It’s another interminably wet evening as they gather round the fire. Mac and Kat are playing a game of chess. Ben sits in the old wingback chair, tuning his guitar as a roll-up coils smoke into the air beside him. Carla sits at his feet lost in a book while Freya is curled in her usual position at one end of the sofa darning holes in a pair of tights. Simon appears in the kitchen doorway and clears his throat. No one knows what he is going to say until the words are out of his mouth, cast like pebbles into the stillness of the room. ‘I think you should all know that Freya is pregnant.’