How to Fall in Love Again: Kitty's Story

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘What are you clapping for, you strange child?’ Ruraigh sighed and Hamish laughed.

  She stared at them, unaware that she had actually clapped.

  Darraghfield. Home…

  The moment the taxi pulled into the driveway, she shot out of the back seat, not caring how or even if her trunk was unloaded from the boot. Leaving the boys to heft the bags and thank the driver, she raced through the front door, skidding to a halt in the kitchen, where Marjorie was scrubbing the hot plate on the Aga.

  ‘Marjorie!’ She ran over to her, wrapping her arms as best she could around her stout middle.

  ‘Well, I never! What an entrance.’ Marjorie tutted her disapproval at such an exhibition even as her widening smile gave out quite a different message. ‘It sure is good to see you, hen.’

  Neither mentioned the last time they’d seen each other, locked together in that desperate hug in the corridor at Vaizey.

  She gave Kitty a small squeeze before almost pushing her away with a nervous shove.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ Kitty grabbed a warm cookie from the plate in the middle of the table and pushed the whole thing into her mouth, immediately reaching for a second as a deluge of crumbs tumbled down her jersey.

  ‘He’s away down at the village with Patrick, getting the messages. We weren’t sure what time you’d be back.’ Marjorie took in Kitty’s scowl. ‘Don’t look so fed up, he’ll not be long. And you can stop cramming those cookies – I’ve a nice piece of roast beef in the oven and at this rate you’ll not be wanting your tea.’ She winked.

  ‘I always want my tea!’ Kitty reminded her, already looking forward to a supper at the kitchen table. ‘I’ll go up and see Mum.’

  Marjorie looked up briskly. ‘Why not wait for your dad?’

  ‘No, it’s okay. He might be ages and I’ve really missed her and I know she’s missed me.’

  ‘Kitty! Kitty!’ Marjorie called after her, but as was often the case with Kitty, who had fire in her belly and wings on her heels, it was too late. She was already racing along the hallway and bounding up the back stairs to the main landing and then on to the turret rooms and her parents’ bedroom. She ran her fingers through her straggly hair and smiled as she gripped the brass door handle and slowly turned it.

  Kitty could not have properly explained what she was expecting, but it would have included the waft of her mum’s floral scent, so liberally applied that it clung to her clothes, her mum’s arms flung wide around her, and a thousand kisses dotted all over her face to make up for all the ones they’d missed. And this would be accompanied by a burbled outpouring of love: ‘Oh, how I love you, how I’ve missed you! You look so tall/gorgeous/grown-up! Let’s go for a walk – no, let’s go dancing! Let’s go sit in front of the fire and you can tell me everything. I want to hear all about life at Vaizey, and boys! Are you still sweet on Angus? Is he your boyfriend?’

  But this was nothing like that. Not even close.

  The room smelt bad. So bad that Kitty’s nose wrinkled at the sour, unpleasantly malty mixture of bad breath, wind and body odour, all tinged with something vaguely medicinal. The air felt greasy on her lips, and with the windows tightly shut and the heavy curtains drawn, there was not even the faintest breeze to stir the atmosphere or dilute the horrible fug.

  ‘Stephen?’ The small, crackly voice came from the mattress.

  Kitty stepped forward slowly and whispered into the half-light, her eyes now adjusted and able to make out her mum’s tiny, wizened frame. She was swathed in a flannelette nightie that had once sat snugly on sturdy hips and rounded breasts but now hung off bones stretched over with thin skin. Her body looked like it was sick of living.

  ‘No, Mum.’ She tried not to let her shock overwhelm her. ‘It’s me. It’s Kitty.’ She swallowed.

  ‘Kitty! Oh Kitty!’ Her mum leant on one stick-thin arm and heaved herself into a sitting position, wriggling up on the bed until her back rested on the plump pillow mountain. She reached out her arms and her face crumpled as if she was crying, but there were no tears. Her mouth hung open in a dark hole. ‘Come and sit here,’ she eventually managed, patting the space next to her.

  Kitty hated that she instinctively felt reluctant to get any closer to her beloved mum. My mum! ‘Shall I… shall I open the window?’

  ‘No! Don’t do that.’ Fenella Montrose held her hands out and spoke forcefully, as if her daughter had suggested something monstrous. ‘I can’t have them open, in case they’re looking at me! And they might be, right now!’ She pulled her nightgown closed at her throat. ‘They watch me, Kitty. They watch me all the time,’ she whispered, a stricken expression on her face.

  Kitty looked from her mum to the velvet curtains that hid the outside world. Words faltered in her mouth and she wished she’d done as Marjorie had suggested and waited for her dad. She finally took up the spot next to her, trying to ignore the smell of her unwashed body and the sight of her thick hair, once soft and shiny, now clinging to her head in an oily cap, the ends wisped and curled, the rest hanging in ropey knots around her shoulders.

  She looked like a madwoman.

  Kitty swallowed the thought. She’s not mad, just struggling. Severe clinical depression, a broken brain, that’s what it is.

  Her mum gripped her hand with desperation and it was then that the tears began to trickle down her sallow cheeks. ‘It’s been so long since I saw you, my baby girl.’

  ‘Just a few weeks, Mum—’

  ‘No,’ her mum interrupted, shaking her lollypop head on her weak neck, ‘not weeks, years and years. They took you from me.’

  ‘I…’ Kitty didn’t know what to say. She could never have imagined feeling afraid of the woman she loved, but she did.

  ‘You need to stop your dad! He’s trying to send me away.’ Her mum bowed her head and collapsed against the pillows. ‘He sent Balla Boy away, and then you, and now he’s trying to send me away too – I know he is. I have to try and keep alert! I can’t let it happen. I can’t leave Darraghfield.’

  ‘He wouldn’t do that, Mum. He loves you,’ Kitty offered weakly. She would never have imagined he’d send her to Vaizey, but he had.

  ‘And that woman… Marjorie!’ Her mum spoke with narrowed eyes and a face twisted with hatred. ‘She’s trying to poison me! I can’t eat anything she’s touched because she will kill me, Kitty. She will!’ She sat forward and grabbed at Kitty’s shoulders, her gaze wandering and her mouth slack. The exertion seemed to exhaust her and her eyes closed, as she sank back into the pillows.

  Kitty cooed and smiled as best she could. Backing out of the room, she raced down to the kitchen.

  Marjorie spun round at the sound of her footsteps. ‘Kitty! I told you—’

  Kitty didn’t hear the rest of her scolding. Bent double, she vomited onto the flagstones, watching as the cookie-riddled splatter crept across the kitchen floor.

  ‘Oh, dear God!’ Marjorie rushed forward and gathered her long red hair in her hands, out of the way.

  ‘What’s going on here?’

  Her dad came in via the back door and Kitty glanced up briefly, so glad to see him, incapacitated though she was by her sickness. She felt bereft. The world she’d been excitedly picturing while she was away at school no longer existed. Her mum was still in Timbuktu or somewhere much, much further…

  ‘She might have rushed a cookie or two when she got in,’ Marjorie offered by way of explanation.

  ‘Ah, that’ll have done it.’ Her dad placed the bag of groceries on the table and palmed small circles on her back.

  Kitty stared at the pool of vomit on the floor in front of her, unwilling and unable to say that it wasn’t the cookies that had made her sick, it was the sight and smell of her mum and the flame of naked fear that her bizarre words had fanned.

  ‘I’m so glad you’re home!’ her dad whispered. ‘And look, there’s someone here who’s very keen to meet you.’

  Kitty raised her eyes. A ball of fluff was poking out from inside her dad’s wax
jacket – a wee collie pup.

  ‘This young fella is Champ. I’ve told him all about you.’

  She smiled thinly at the cute dog panting in her dad’s arms. It would have been the loveliest surprise had she not been expecting something far, far more.

  *

  Kitty envied Ruraigh and Hamish their ability to simply pick up where they had left off the last time they were home. It was as if the environment flexed to accommodate them rather than the other way around. She watched, fascinated, as they literally grabbed the snooker cues from where they’d placed them in the rack on the wall and continued with their game. Their bedrooms were pretty soon covered with the paraphernalia that accompanied them wherever they went – rugby balls, tennis racquets, gym shoes, shorts, dirty laundry, clean laundry and the odd textbook, there for show more than anything useful. She knew that no school assignment was going to get in the way of their summer schedule.

  It was only two days in and already she found it harder to be home than she could have imagined. Darraghfield was the place she loved. The long and winding driveway, the neat garden encircled by seemingly endless moorland, and the gothic flint architecture, capped turrets, deep, stone-mullioned windows and moss-covered quoins were all she had ever known, and yet now, no matter where she was on the estate, she could only picture her mum cloistered in the darkened room, reeking of desperation and quite lost. Kitty’s eyes were continually drawn to that side of the house as if she expected her mum to be peeking out, keeping watch. She’d already visited her twice since that first time, sitting on the side of the bed while her mum slept, guilty at how relieved she was at being spared more intense interaction. Even when she wasn’t in her mum’s room, she found it hard to properly relax and almost impossible to eat; her mum’s illness had upset the balance of the house as well as her own constitution.

  Now she sat on the flat rock at the top of the field with her knees hunched into her chest, looking down over the valley below, breathing in the smell of damp, mossy earth and taking in the majestic view, enjoying nothing more than the sound of the wind whistling through the tall trees and skimming the water as it swept up the glen.

  The maniacal roar of quad bikes fast approaching shattered the peace. She gritted her teeth with irritation. The over-revved engines and obvious speed told her it was her cousins driving and not her dad and Patrick, who preferred to potter.

  ‘Wosamatta, Kitty? Missing lover-boy?’ Ruraigh called as he hurtled past on the quad.

  She shook her head and ignored him, her expression sullen. The boys saw her fling with their friend as a great source of amusement; she’d heard them ribbing Angus at school and had liked the way he’d taken it in his stride and made no attempt to deny it. It made her feel a bit wanted and that was nice.

  Hamish came soon after, standing on the pedals and trying to make the bike lift on the bumps.

  Idiot.

  ‘Away and straighten yer face!’ he yelled, laughing as he went.

  She stuck two fingers up. The boys only howled their laughter louder. A few minutes passed and then she heard her dad’s unmistakable whistle, no doubt trying to coax the energetic, inquisitive Champ to order.

  ‘There you are!’ He let out a deep breath and loosened his scarf about his neck. ‘I’ve been looking all over for you, thought you might be in the pool.’

  ‘I was, earlier.’ She spoke softly.

  ‘So much for summer, eh? This weather is cold.’ He sidled up and sat next to her on the rock, rubbing his hands together before forming them into a little cage into which he blew warm air.

  ‘I kind of like it like this,’ she confessed.

  ‘Me too. You seem…’ He paused, and she knew he would have been waiting, seeking out the moment to chat, and apparently this was it. ‘You seem quiet.’

  ‘I feel quiet.’ A shiver ran through her at this truth.

  ‘Aye.’ He let the air settle between them. ‘Marjorie said you went to see Mum when you arrived and she feared it was that that might have upset your tum.’

  She nodded, resting her chin on her knees and running the flat of her palm over the lichen-covered rock, liking the feel of the small shards and jags on the cool rock beneath her fingertips.

  ‘What did you think?’

  Kitty shrugged, unable to accurately explain to her dad just how horrible she’d found it, her words unspoken out of loyalty and embarrassment.

  ‘I know it’s not easy…’ he began. ‘I’m a grown-up, Kitty, and even I’ve found it…’ Again he paused, seeming to search for the right tone and phrases. ‘Living under the same roof as your mum’s illness is like living with a huge, dark monster of which I’m quite afraid. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, I pretend I can’t see it! I don’t talk about it, don’t mention it. And yet there it is, hovering at the table when we eat, looking over our shoulders while we clean our teeth at night and even sitting at the bottom of our bed, staring at me while I make my twice nightly visit to the bathroom.’

  She looked up at him, grateful for his eloquence. ‘That’s how I feel, Dad, like it’s everywhere, and like I don’t want to look at it. It makes me feel scared.’

  ‘It makes me feel scared too.’ He placed his elbows on his knees and leant forward. From this angle she was able to study his wide, square back.

  ‘It’s not just the weather that makes me feel cold.’ He sighed. ‘Your mum used to be sunny, noisy! Always singing or humming or calling out, and that brought warmth to our home, but now Darraghfield is chilly, and the mountain we have to climb seems insurmountable and joy has fled from every room.’

  ‘Don’t say that, Dad! It’ll get better.’ She hoped this wasn’t a lie.

  He nodded vigorously, as if this might make it more plausible. There was a beat while neither of them spoke; the breeze whistled and brought with it the faint scent of heather. Her dad looked back at her. ‘Here’s the thing: I don’t know how to acknowledge this monster, I don’t know what to say to it. Should I stand tall and confront it like the unwanted intruder it is?’

  She stared at him, knowing no answer was required.

  ‘I think about that every minute of every day. But what if the monster retaliates, gets mad, roars louder than me? How would I cope then? I’m already weary from living with it for so long.’

  Kitty nodded. He looked weary. And she got the feeling he was glad of someone to talk to about it.

  ‘Everything I used to consider routine has been disturbed or destroyed. To continue to ignore the monster feels like the easiest option, but I must admit that does little for my confidence or my belief that I can steer our family ship through these rocky waters.’

  Her cousins’ boisterous shouts drifted back to them from the path down to the river.

  ‘I always thought I could plot a route through anything that might come our way, always had a calm horizon within sight, but I hadn’t reckoned on the strength of this adversary. And I am tired of it, Kitty, so very tired.’

  ‘What can we do to help her, Dad?’ she said in a small voice. ‘We have to do something.’

  She’d never seen her dad like this before, almost admitting defeat. His eyes were red pools of sadness.

  ‘I… I have never been more afraid of anyone or anything in my whole life.’

  ‘It’s still Mum! It’s still her!’ Kitty said imploringly.

  ‘I know. Oh, I know, and I still love her now like I’ve loved her always.’ He swallowed and at his words she felt her pulse settle a little with relief. ‘But this illness, this monster has got its claws into the person I love the most. It has wrapped her in its arms and sits with her perched on its lap while it whispers in her ear.’

  ‘She can’t help it, she—’

  ‘I know, Kitty! I know she can’t help it!’ She knew he would regret raising his voice, a rare thing and a clue as to what simmered beneath. ‘But sometimes it feels like a tug-of-war between me and the monster, the prize being the person I love – your mum.’ He drew breath. ‘And I cannot ho
nestly say who will win.’

  ‘I think, Dad, that no matter how hard it is for us living with the monster, for Mum it must be much, much worse.’ She stared at her dad, who gave a small suggestion of a smile.

  ‘You’re right, of course, my smart girl.’

  ‘And remember, Dad, Mum is a warrior.’

  He blinked as he stared at the horizon, and, again, Kitty hoped this was not a lie.

  *

  Her birthday came and went, a non-event really, on a grey, rainy day and not how she had envisaged celebrating turning fifteen. Marjorie had wrapped up a pair of hand-knitted socks and made a carrot cake. Kitty went through the motions, but for whose sake she wasn’t sure. Her mum fidgeted at the table, eyeing their housekeeper with suspicion, her body language screaming that she was desperate to flee. In truth, Kitty almost preferred it when she was ensconced in her room. It meant the rest of them could at least relax a little, pretend.

  It had been three days since she’d last stood outside her mum’s bedroom door, her sweaty, nervous palm resting on the door handle, drawn inside out of duty rather than desire. Cautiously she twisted the knob and peeked through the tiniest of gaps. Her mum sat in the middle of her bed, crying quietly. Her dad, sitting slightly to one side, held her tight, her greasy hair spilling down over his shirtfront. ‘It’s okay, Fenella. It’s okay, my darling. I’m right here, I am right here…’ he cooed, rocking her softly, as if dealing with a baby.

  Kitty quickly and quietly closed the door, feeling the familiar icy sadness at the sight of her mother’s distress, but also something else, a twinge of embarrassment at having witnessed the tender moment between her parents. It felt very different to when she used to watch them chatting, whispering on the sofa, back when her mum would sip at her glass of single malt and giggle like a girl; back when there’d been light behind her eyes instead of fear; back when she was a warrior and Kitty had hoped to grow up to be just like her. That had been her dream. She couldn’t remember when the prospect of turning out like her mum had become a nightmare.