‘Are you angry?’ Tom asks.
Lila shrugs. ‘No, I’m not angry. Not with you, anyway,’ she adds pointedly. She glances back towards the meadow again. She can’t help it. Suddenly she is nervous too. She hasn’t seen Kat since that afternoon last month, when she’d surprised her at the lake. That day, Lila had sat on the edge of the tree trunk for a long time, listening to her mother’s explanation, occasionally glancing across to William, and when Kat had finished, Lila had just sat there in silence.
‘Well?’ her mother had asked.
Lila had shaken her head. ‘Well what? What do you want me to say?’
‘Are you angry? Do you hate me for not telling you sooner?’
Lila had taken a deep breath. ‘I don’t know. I can’t get my head around it.’
They’d sat quietly for a little while longer and then, to buy herself some thinking time more than anything else, Lila had offered to show Kat around the renovated cottage. ‘Only if you want to. You know, seeing as you used to live there . . .’
Kat had studied her for a moment. ‘Yes, I would like that . . . very much.’
William remained tactfully down by the lake while the two of them had wandered up the grassy bank to the front door of the cottage, now painted the same duck egg blue as her kitchen cabinets. Lila held it open for Kat then watched as she moved about the place, exclaiming over the renovations, admiring the changes. She’d commented on the gleaming paintwork, the re-upholstered furniture, the fresh light feel of the place and she’d paused to study familiar objects salvaged from the past as she went – a chipped plate – an old milk bottle – a pile of musty books. Up in the spare bedroom she’d stood for a long time before the faded mural still evident on the wall. She hadn’t said a word, just reached out one hand to trace the thin shape of the girl with long plaited hair and Lila had turned away as the tears had begun to slide down Kat’s face.
It must have been hard, Lila realised, revisiting the place after all those years; memories of what they had shared there still echoing around them. But as she’d watched her mother move through the cottage, Lila hadn’t been able to shake the uneasy feeling that something was still off. Was it really all out there now? Was that really everything? She’d tried hard, ever since, to begin the journey towards acceptance . . . towards forgiveness . . . but there was no denying the distance between them now.
‘Well,’ says Lila, turning to Tom, ‘you’ve invited her. Let’s see if she comes.’
Tom reaches for her hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze.
They eat lunch sitting on picnic rugs in the shade of the alder trees. Lila glances around occasionally, her eyes drawn to the trees and the meadow. She wonders about Kat, whether she will come, but the afternoon drifts on and she never materialises and soon Lila is too soporific with food and pregnancy and sunshine to maintain her agitated state. She lies back on the picnic rug and plucks at stray dandelions while Rosie sprawls panting at her feet. A little further away Evelyn dozes in the deckchair, a floppy straw hat tipped over her eyes. Tom sits on the crumpled tree trunk beside William, both of them throwing stones out into the lake until after a while, he stands and stretches. ‘I thought I’d try a little fishing. Anyone object if I take the boat out?’
Lila knows what he’s doing and throws him a grateful glance. She watches as he gathers his fishing gear and pushes the boat out into the water, rowing out towards the centre of the lake. When he is a distance away, Lila moves across to where William still sits on the old tree stump and perches beside him. There is something she has to ask him, but she is afraid and so she waits a moment, summoning her courage. When she does finally speak, she finds it easier not to look at him. ‘Kat told me something, after you’d left us the other day. She said, as we were being truthful, that there was one last thing I should know.’
‘What’s that?’ asks William, intrigued.
‘Apparently Freya once told her that you could have been my father.’ Lila blushes and picks at a dry piece of bark beside her. She still can’t bring herself to look at him. ‘Is it – is it possible?’
William clears his throat. He squints out over the water, to where Tom sits silhouetted against the sun, then pulls his gaze back to Lila. ‘I don’t honestly know why Freya told your mother that. Perhaps she thought Kat would go easier on her if it had been me that got her pregnant and not Simon.’ He shakes his head. ‘But I’m afraid it’s not true. Freya and I never slept together. Not once.’
Lila feels a tiny flash of disappointment.
‘There was one night . . .’ continues William, his voice a little hoarse. ‘We came close . . . Kat probably told you. We were so young . . . stupid really. It was just one crazy night when things got a little . . .’ he clears his throat again, ‘out of control. But . . . it didn’t seem right. I wanted her, but not like that – not when we were all so messed up.’ He swallows and looks out across the lake. ‘I loved Freya. I just never knew how to tell her. That necklace, when you were born, it was the only way I could think of to show her.’
Lila reaches for the pendant at her neck. It feels strange but somehow also comforting to know that her birth mother once wore it. Her fingers brush the three raised seeds inside the circular disc. Three: Mac. Freya. Lila. The three of them nestled together inside a world as fragile and thin as paper. Lila sees the glassy sheen of William’s eyes and gives him a moment to compose himself. ‘That’s a shame,’ she says with a shy, sideways smile. ‘You would have made a good dad.’
They both stare out across the water, watching as Tom baits the fishing line and hooks it out across the water. ‘What was she like?’ she asks, eventually.
‘Freya?’ William sighs. ‘Lovely. She was very creative; she had your eye for design, a talent for looking at the landscape or a corner of a house and making it more beautiful. She was always making things, or picking flowers, sewing and knitting. But she was young and, I think, a little in awe of Kat. They had an interesting dynamic, sometimes more like mother and daughter than sisters, but it was complicated. Freya was such a bright light, she drew attention like a flame, and yet she didn’t court it; sometimes she seemed to prefer to hide in Kat’s shadow. It was when she fell pregnant that everything changed. It was hard for Kat . . . and Simon was so domineering, so insistent about the way things should be done and the rules of the cottage that none of us knew what to do to help her. You could see it in Freya’s eyes; she was like a caged animal. She was trapped.’ He shakes his head. ‘I’ll always regret that I didn’t do more.’
Lila feels William’s pain. She reaches out to touch his hand and he turns and smiles sadly.
‘You do look incredibly like her, you know; it’s rather startling . . . especially now you’re pregnant.’ He smiles again. ‘Mum loved her too. She relished her visits to the farm. She used to say that Freya arriving was like that moment when the sun finally bursts through a bank of cloud.’
Lila swallows and then turns to glances out towards the dark line of trees fringing the lake. She can’t help it; that disconcerting feeling is back, the one of being watched. It’s her imagination, she knows, probably fired up by all this talk of Freya. She swallows again and tries to shake the feeling away. ‘Did you really think she was going to leave with you?’
William nods. ‘I really did. We’d talked about it only the day before. I told her we could go anywhere, that I would help her.’ He sighs. ‘I’ll never understand why she did it . . . why I wasn’t enough for her and her baby . . . why she made that choice . . . and why she left you. For a while I was so angry with her. I suppose I didn’t understand about post-natal depression.’
Lila reaches for his hand and squeezes it gently. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says.
‘Oh I’ve had a lot of time to think about it over the years. Kat and Simon made the right decision. Simon was your father and Kat was your aunt. Perhaps choosing not to tell you about Freya was the kindest choice. It would have been a hard thing to hear at any age.’ He turns to her. ‘Even
now?’
Lila nods and glances out to the boat. ‘It’s hard, but I’m glad I know.’ She watches as a swift plummets towards the surface of the lake to snatch up an unsuspecting insect, before swooping back into the blue. ‘But all this time, she’s been pretending to be Freya . . . it’s a little odd, don’t you think?’
‘It’s strange, I’ll admit that . . . but she had just lost her sister. Perhaps she thought she could start again with Simon, with you – create a real family. It was the one thing she always wanted, after all: a family.’ He shakes his head. ‘Grief does funny things to us all.’
Lila nods. She’s learned a thing or two about grief and the darkness it can cast this past year. It’s hard to believe that she is the same woman who just one year ago sat in a park and considered, even for a fleeting moment, stealing someone else’s child.
‘Perhaps she did it to remember her sister,’ continues William. ‘Or perhaps she wanted to do it for you . . . so you could in some small way still have them both in your life.’ He turns to look back out over the lake. ‘I suppose that’s a question for Kat, not me. The truth is I’m not sure I’ll ever totally understand what happened here that year.’
A dragonfly zips past and hovers over the shallows, its wings beating so fast she can hear the thrum, low and steady like the distant buzz of a helicopter; it remains there a moment, then darts to the reeds where it settles on a slender stem of green. Further out on the lake Tom splashes the oars though the water. William begins to say something then hesitates. He swallows and then tries again. ‘So how are things between you and Tom now?’
Lila smiles. ‘We’re good. We’re moving into a good place. Things feel different, a little beaten-down, more weathered, but I think we’re coming out the other side stronger for it. We seem to understand each other now . . . and I’m not going to run away any more,’ she adds with another small smile.
‘I think I’ve learned something about grief, this past year. I know that it will always be with me – be a part of me. But I also know that I don’t have to hide it. I don’t have to be ashamed of it. I love my daughter, Milly, and I will always be her mum. The love and the grief and the joy and the pain and all the emotion – good and bad – all of it that’s yet to come . . . well, that’s who I am, isn’t it?’ She smiles at him. ‘I feel like I’m stepping out of a year of shadows, into a brighter place.’
William nods and Lila knows he understands. ‘And how are things between you and Kat?’ he asks.
Lila swallows. She glances up towards the meadow then looks back to the boat. ‘It’s going to take time,’ she says quietly. ‘I’m angry that she and Dad kept the truth about Freya from me for so long. It’s hard not to look back on our family and feel like it was all one big lie. But they were young. Kat had just lost her sister and she was left holding a four-week-old baby. It must have been terribly traumatic. I’m sure they were just trying to do their best, amidst the tragedy of it all.’ She shakes her head. ‘Well, I know it wasn’t easy. I saw their marriage.’ Lila swallows again and turns to William. ‘But I understand now too. I understand why she stayed with him. She was doing it for me . . . and for Freya – holding us together, putting up with Dad’s philandering, so that we remained a family. There’s no denying it; she truly did love Dad and me.’
William nods.
She smiles a little sadly. ‘I think that’s something I can understand now: that ache to have a family.’ Lila reaches out to touch the moss growing on the fallen tree trunk and a piece comes away in her fingers, soft and spongy. ‘I’m still struggling with that day though. The fall. She told me a little more about it. I pushed and pushed her for an explanation as to why she’d stayed with Dad for so long. She said I looked so like Freya that day – furious, pregnant – that it had upset her deeply. She almost told me then, apparently, but when I ran away . . . well, she raced after me, tried to stop me and what happened next was just a terrible, tragic accident.’ She squints out towards the boat and watches as Tom reels in a small, flipping fish. He unhooks it from the line and then throws it back with a splash, its scales flashing silver in the sunlight. ‘The lies . . . they’re not easily forgiven but Kat’s the only mother I’ll ever know. If we’re going to continue to have a relationship then we’re going to have to find a way to live with them.’ She sighs. ‘You know, I always knew something wasn’t quite right. I never felt quite “at home” with them both. And yet coming here, spending time at the cottage . . . I felt at peace. I felt, at times, like I was home.’
‘It’s amazing what our subconscious can tell us. How a place can speak to us. This is where you were born,’ says William, gesturing out across the valley. ‘It was only a short time in your life, but it’s where you spent your first weeks with your biological mother. It’s where a massive, life-changing event occurred for you. It’s no wonder you feel a connection to the place.’
Lila thinks back to the dreams, the whispers in the trees, the shadows on the lake and her strange sense of déjà vu and she can’t help a small shiver. She looks around at the cottage, at the water, and at the trees fringing the lake. ‘I’ve made a decision,’ she says finally, ‘about the cottage. I’m not going to sell it. I want to keep it on, exactly as it is. We’ll come up as much as we can. I want our children to know this place. I want to bring them here and create a new story – one of togetherness and joy.’
William nods. He doesn’t say anything but she can see that he is pleased.
‘I have to thank you, William. If it hadn’t been for you giving me this,’ she stretches her arms out wide to encompass the valley, ‘I never would have found out the truth about Freya. It was you who gave it to me.’
William smiles and looks down at the gnarly bark on the tree trunk beside him. ‘I would have been proud to call you my daughter.’
Lila swallows and blinks back her tears. She looks about and sees the future stretching before them, filmy yet definable, like the thin cirrus veil building in the sky above them. She imagines Evelyn seated in the shade of the trees bouncing a gurgling baby on her lap. She imagines a grinning toddler raised high on Tom’s shoulders and a skinny-legged kid beside them, a fishing rod in hand and William leaning over to bait the hook, Rosie wheeling at his heels. She sees herself wading through the shallows or picking flowers in the meadow to lie upon Freya’s grave. She closes her eyes and sees all the summers that are yet to come and she knows that whatever happens – with Kat, with William and Evelyn, with Tom and the cottage – she knows there will be family.
She sighs. Somewhere deep inside she feels the first stirrings of life, a gentle but insistent fluttering of a tiny, flailing limb. She feels the baby like a real and present truth – like the shining surface of the lake and the waving fronds of the honesty bushes – and she opens her eyes and smiles.
26
KAT
July
It is late afternoon when Kat makes her way through the high grass of the meadow and over the ridge, before coming to a halt by the blackberry bushes above the cottage. She can see Lila and William far below, seemingly deep in conversation on the fallen tree trunk while an elderly grey-haired lady – is that really Evelyn? – dozes in a deckchair. Further out on the water the tin boat bobs in the sunshine with Tom slumped at one end, a fishing rod in his hands. She’s driven all the way from Buckinghamshire at Tom’s invitation, but it’s taken every ounce of her courage to leave the sanctuary of her car and walk these last few hundred metres to the lake, and now that she’s here, she’s not sure she can do it – she’s not sure she can join them all at the water’s edge.
She hesitates on the ridge and wonders whether to turn on her heel and leave. No one knows that she is there. She could be gone even before they realise that she came; but while she doesn’t feel brave enough to join them, she also knows that she isn’t quite ready to leave yet either. Something about the light-dappled water and the wind shivering through the grass and rustling the trees holds her captive so instead of heading down to t
he lake, she crosses the ridge and heads for the alders, seeking shelter amongst their tall white trunks, losing herself in their shadows.
The memories are everywhere; in the gentle lapping of the water, in the shimmering green honesty seed heads, in the tree trunk lying slumped across the grassy bank, even in the slanted shade cast by the cottage in the late afternoon sun. She accepts each small familiarity like a tiny blade to her heart, like the punishment she knows it to be. Hardest of all, however, is the sight of Mac and Lila, seated together on the tree trunk.
Even though Mac has changed considerably in the past three decades, she can still see a faint outline of the gangly young man he once was, hidden in his more substantial form. And Lila – not identical to Freya, no – but there is something in the high curve of her cheekbone, the fullness of her lips and the long, loose tangle of her fair hair, that reaches out to her like an echo coming from very far away. Watching them together, Kat feels her breath stripped from her once again. If she blinked it could almost be Mac and Freya thirty years ago and she feels a familiar ache for her sister welling up inside her.
She could go to them. She could join them. She could begin the difficult task of forgiveness and healing but something holds her back. Even when Lila glances around once or twice, peering over to where she stands hidden in the shade of the trees, even then she doesn’t move. She won’t go to her. Not yet.
There are new memories of course now, too. They return, fresh from that day only a month ago when she had come back to the lake to tell Lila the truth about her mother. Stepping inside the cottage for the first time in years had been a strange, discombobulating experience – the cottage at the same time both achingly familiar and utterly transformed. She’d moved through the rooms with her heart thudding like a caged bird in her chest, swelling with the complex emotions of grief and love and loss . . . and pride too, for Lila’s hard work and achievements. Afterwards, in an attempt to compose herself, she had walked alone to the far end of the jetty and gazed out over the pristine blue-green surface of the lake. She’d looked around and marvelled at how outside nothing had changed – not the shimmering water or the billowing reeds or the shadows of the trees – and yet at the same time she knew everything had.
The Shadow Year Page 40
