The puppy staggered to the edge of the box, wagging its little tail so hard that it lost its balance and fell sideways, exposing a smudge of white in the silky jet-black of its underbelly. Its fur was crinkled in places, adding to the impression of a creature zipped into an outfit still several sizes too large. Having got back to the edge of the box, it toppled out face first, righted itself, and then waddled across the sheets of newspaper to the large corner basket that housed its Labrador mother and siblings, already plugged in for an afternoon feed. The litter belonged to a neighbour of Hannah’s family. It was Christmas Eve and the slower puppy had already been picked out as a favourite. Still only three weeks old, it would be early February before it was ready to go its new home.
A puppy for Christmas. It was sheer genius. Eleanor stole another glance at her sister’s family, in line beside her, rapt and quiet, falling in love, healing. After a week in Trevor’s tender care, she was starting to feel almost healed herself. The kindness of the man, so unexpected, had been like balm. Trevor had arrived at nine on the dot each morning, like Mary Poppins, ready to clean and organise and cook, fixing things as he went. Every inch of her pokey flat now shone, looking, as a result, a lot less pokey. Scores of bin bags had been filled and disposed of. Light poured through the clean windowpanes, falling in bright squares across the polished wood floors. Even her ancient and sorry array of defeated pot-plants, draped and wilting around various windowsills, were sitting up pruned and perky. Laundered linen bulged neatly on the shelves of her bathroom cupboard. Chiselled free of glaciers, her freezer door opened and closed properly for the first time in years. Below it, the racks in the fridge, scrubbed of mildew and stains, housed a dizzying spread of appealing food – fresh pasta, greaseproof paper parcels of deli cheeses and meats, yoghurts, a cooked chicken. The salad drawer contained salad and the egg holder bobbed with eggs. Even more extraordinary, Trevor had managed to track down her lost bag, returning from one of his shopping forages with it strapped across his portly chest like a handbag. Someone had found it hanging on a branch, he explained breezily, and had the good sense to hand it in to a police station.
‘It’s only two nights. You’ll be fine,’ he had told her in his kind, commanding way that morning, posting her into a taxi to catch her Christmas Eve train to Fairfield and sliding a twenty-pound note into her hand before he slammed the door. He was setting off himself later in the day to spend the entire Christmas and New Year break with a couple he referred to as his ‘Dorset cousins’, an elderly pair of women about whom he was amusingly disparaging but of whom he was clearly very fond. ‘Just be gentle with yourself. Don’t try too hard. And if you are not up to visiting that father of yours, then don’t do that either.’
Eleanor had spent the train journey in a state of gathering nervous tension nonetheless, worried about her hastily cobbled gifts, tucked among a few spare clothes in her holdall, and dreading a three-day charade of festivities in a house still trembling with loss. Hovering on the edge of such worries, like a patch of thin ice where she still feared to tread, was her recent meltdown on the common. Near-madness in retrospect. Yet Trevor had helped immeasurably with that too, probing for details as to what had happened and why, but always as he scrubbed or cooked, so that Eleanor was faced with the easier task of directing her answers to the back of his head.
It was almost as if their roles had been reversed, Eleanor had mused wryly: she pouring out every sorry twist of her life story, while Trevor listened. Except that, unlike her, her new friend never seemed burdened by the need to make things add up, contenting himself instead with flinging out occasional and refreshingly pithy comments along the lines that life was a bugger and families a mess-up and unless Eleanor dropped the habit of blaming herself for every bad thing that had happened, she might as well leg it back to her railway line. Not even the Nick business fazed him. Love and grief were both forms of madness, he assured her, and could produce all sorts of strange behaviours. The only thing she mentioned that produced a vehement response was the voice that had brought her to her senses. That was her inner self, Trevor had pronounced solemnly, pausing in his labours to give Eleanor his full attention; it was the core of her, yelling its desire to survive, and she should bloody well listen to it.
The moment Eleanor had seen Howard, striding towards her along the small country station platform, grinning warmly, his arms outstretched to relieve her of her bag, all the apprehension had dissolved.
‘Thank God you came.’ He had hugged her hard, keeping hold of her for several seconds. ‘I so wanted you to. I’ve made the children wait in the car. I needed to say sorry to you first. I was too hung-over to manage it last time.’ He stepped back, keeping a grip on her elbows, compelling her to look him squarely in the face. ‘How I behaved at Kat’s funeral was terrible. Getting so drunk afterwards, telling you what I did. Can we put it behind us? As Kat herself would have wanted?’
Eleanor had tried to speak, but he ploughed on, drowning her out. The platform had emptied round them.
‘Every word I said was true,’ he went on urgently. ‘Kat did always care, deeply, about how you might judge her, but I also know – what I was in too much of a state to articulate properly – is that part of her motive in not telling you was to protect you.’
‘Protect me?’ Eleanor had let out a laugh of disbelief.
‘Yes.’ Howard had eyed her gravely. ‘What your father did was so… ugly.’ He paused, his thin face trembling. ‘She wanted to protect you from the burden of knowing about it, not let it cast a shadow over your life as it had hers. The trouble was,’ he added quietly, ‘that seeing you always reminded her of it, and she found that hard. At least, that’s my theory.’
Eleanor had taken a deep breath before answering, still processing what he had said, wanting so badly to believe it that she didn’t quite trust herself. ‘Thank you,’ she said finally. ‘It’s a good theory.’
Along the platform behind him, Evie had edged into view by the exit, wearing what looked like a brand new pink anorak and matching wellington boots.
‘I think someone is losing patience,’ Eleanor had murmured, waving at her niece over his shoulder.
‘Hey, bad girl,’ Howard called, scooping up Eleanor’s bag and setting off at once to retrieve his daughter, any suggestion of real anger belied by the grin splitting his face. ‘I thought I told you to stay in the car. Didn’t we agree that getting a puppy for Christmas would only happen if you were good… I know it’s mad,’ he added, glancing back and laughing at the expression on Eleanor’s face, ‘but a near neighbour of Hannah’s has a litter of black labs to find homes for and it felt like it was one of those things that was meant to be. We are going straight there now, there having being a general consensus round the breakfast table that it would be nice to have you to help us choose.’
It was a small thing perhaps, in the grand scheme of all that had happened, but sitting on a kitchen floor with puppies clambering across her knees, and afterwards back in the hubbub of the car, Howard chairing a fierce back-seat debate about names, the smell of the pups still on her skin, Eleanor was aware of a warmth inside her that went beyond the efficient heating of Howard’s Range Rover. The children chattered and shouted and didn’t listen to each other. Howard laughed and told them off with idle jokey threats. It was Kat’s family, and she was part of it.
Shooting over the Roman Bridge, long since mended from the flooding at the start of the year, Eleanor found her mind travelling back to her arrival at Fairfield station almost twelve months before, the taxi driver so irritated by the queue for the bridge repairs, Kat still frail from her operation, awaiting her with that prickly cheerfulness for which Eleanor had learnt to brace herself. It was like looking back to different lives, different people, and yet all that had altered was her understanding. And Kat was gone.
Eleanor stared out at the tight white wintry sky, an awning over the flat brown fields, all of it blurring as Howard cruised along the country lanes. At least I am staring life in the face again, she consoled herself, at least I am not looking the other way.
As soon as they got to the house and Luke had made a touchingly adult to-do of carrying her bag upstairs for her, Eleanor pulled on a purple beanie of Kat’s from off a coat peg and slipped out into the back garden. The swing hung forlornly from the tree branch. Under it the grass was much thinner than the rest of the lawn and pitted with patches of hardened mud. Eleanor watched her feet as she approached, reminding herself she was treading on bits of Kat. Howard had asked if she wanted to be with them for the ash scattering and she had said no. ‘Sorry, darling,’ she said to the air now. ‘I was too sad. Too afraid. I let you down. Again.’
A gust of wind blew through the garden, stirring the swing. Eleanor took hold of it and sat down, pulling the beanie lower over her ears and dropping her head to lean on one of the ropey arms. She wanted to think of Kat, but it was a memory of Connie that surfaced; of their mother’s fast lithe fingers folding squares of coloured paper into animals, flowers, boats. Around them, the floor was a sea of shapes and coloured papers. Kat, fluffy-headed and dimple-kneed, toddled through it, kicking and whooping. Connie had scooped her up and grabbed Eleanor’s hand. ‘Now to the sea, my chickadees,’ she cried, dancing them to the bathroom, where she put Kat on a stool and filled the basin, setting three little paper boats on the water, one pink, one blue, one yellow. ‘Go, little boats. Run for your lives. Escape while you can.’ She blew gently, making the little flotilla bob between the taps, while Kat and Eleanor huffed and puffed, giggling at their new-found power.
Eleanor looked up and saw Evie watching through the kitchen window, palms and nose pressed flat against the glass. She smiled and waved, aware of the origami afternoon still floating inside her, a bubble of comfort, one of several that had been emerging since her recent meltdown.
Evie disappeared from the window and appeared skipping across the lawn a few minutes later, her new pink wellies flapping audibly against her shins.
‘Can I push you?’
Eleanor laughed. ‘I was going to push you.’ But Evie already had two hands on her back, and was groaning dramatically at the physical effort of the task. Eleanor gave a gentle push-off to help and was soon swinging so freely her only worry was knocking her niece off her feet.
Howard’s Christmas gift to her was a lilac pashmina, weightless and soft as gossamer, immaculately wrapped in layers of crisp white tissue and gold festive paper, tied with matching ribbon and a gold tag. There was a new bond of candour between them, and in spite of the indomitable Hannah’s extensive culinary preparations on their behalf, Eleanor and Howard muddled through the Christmas meal together. They forgot several of the trimmings and poured so much brandy onto the pudding to get it lit that, had the children not opted instead for Hannah’s mince pies, they might well have passed out. If ever Eleanor fell silent for too long, she would look up to find Howard throwing her a questioning glance of sympathy and she did her best to offer the same in return; although, happily, Howard, in demand on all sides, seemed little in need of it. Rather to her surprise, Hannah joined them soon after the Christmas lunch had been cleared away. There were difficulties at home, Howard explained quietly, sensing Eleanor’s reaction.
As well as Howard’s scarf, there were gifts from the children, which he had clearly overseen: a box of organic soaps from Sophie, chocolates from Luke and a home-made stapled booklet of a story about a butterfly from Evie, which she read to Eleanor several times, scattering crumbs of dried poster paint over the sofa and brazenly changing the events on every run-through. Because it is my story, she told her aunt solemnly, so I can make happen whatever I want.
Eleanor followed Trevor’s advice and deliberately pushed her father to the back of her mind. The decision to visit The Bressingham arrived of its own accord, fully formed, a few hours before she was due on her Boxing Day train back to London. She asked to borrow Kat’s car, but Howard said at once that he would take her and drop her at the station afterwards.
‘I won’t come in,’ he said, pulling up outside the entrance, ‘but I’ll be out here if you need me.’ He squeezed her arm. ‘You don’t have to do this.’
‘I want to. I must.’
‘Okay. Good luck then.’
Eleanor got out of the car and walked steadily across the drive, aware of the weight of her father’s old Bible in her handbag. She had put it in at the last minute and spent the journey devising exact plans for how she would hand it over, what she would say. It didn’t matter how little Vincent understood. She needed to speak out for her own sake. Her sister might have forgiven and moved on and generally been an all-round saint, but what had happened was part of her own life story too. And what Eleanor most needed to communicate to their father was that he disgusted her.
Once inside Vincent’s room, however, Eleanor found the clarity dissolving. A rotund soft-faced woman with tired, kind grey eyes accompanied her there, offering her tea before disappearing. Her father was parked in his wheelchair by the window, granting a view of a cluster of holly bushes studied with cherry-red berries. Since the funeral, he seemed to have shrunk even further into his frame. His legs, their outline visible under his blanket, were thin pipes, his arms like sticks. His hands sat open on either side of his lap, the joints visibly bulging with arthritis. Even his beard had thinned, to the point where it was almost as wispy as the hair on his head. Eleanor dug for hatred but found only pitying repulsion.
‘I know, Dad,’ she began, in a wavering voice, standing before him, the weathered old book clutched in both hands. ‘This is Eleanor, your daughter, speaking and I know what you did. To Kat. I know and I will never forgive you.’
Vincent’s fingers twitched briefly. On the windowsill someone had put a poinsettia. The leaves were as blood-red as the holly berries through the glass behind them and threaded with lines like veins.
Eleanor held the Bible upside down and shook it to release the scribbled message that Kat had been so quick to dismiss back in January.
Darling Connie, came home for a 10-minute lunch. I love you. Vx
‘This means nothing,’ she cried, flapping the envelope near his face. ‘Do you hear me? Nothing. Words are just words. Mum still left us and you have to know why.’ For a moment Eleanor was in the thick of that last morning, with Connie flying out of the front door to pull her and Kat against her for a second farewell, the scent of lemons on her skin and clothes, burying wild kisses in their hair. Eleanor’s heart thumped, just as it had then, when all the love for her mother had been swamped with a nameless fear. ‘Why did she do it, Dad?’ She was shouting now. ‘Why?’
A moment later the door opened.
‘All right in here, are we?’ It was the grey-eyed woman, back with the cup of tea Eleanor had said she didn’t want.
‘Yes, fine, thank you.’ Eleanor’s hands were trembling. She slipped the note back between the pages and held the Bible behind her back. ‘It gets upsetting, that’s all, not to be understood.’
‘Oh, I think he understands. Don’t you, Vince, dear?’ She set the cup of tea down and squeezed Vincent’s shoulder. ‘Lovely to have your daughter here, isn’t it, Vincy?’ She spoke slowly and loudly, as if addressing someone deaf as well as stupid. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it,’ she murmured, flicking Eleanor a hard look as she closed the door.
Eleanor knelt down in front of the wheelchair, this time placing the heavy old book on his lap. ‘I hope you can hear me,’ she said bitterly. ‘Because Kat was… What you did was… Jesus, Dad…’ Sobs began to overtake her. ‘All that godliness of yours…’ She rapped the Bible with her knuckles, making his big limp hands jump. ‘Was it just for show?’ she choked. ‘Something to hide behind?’
Vincent’s jaw hung slackly. His eyes seemed to have fixed on an area of wall behind her back. Wearily, Eleanor got to her feet. Her plan had been to rip up the message the Bible guarded before her father’s eyes, shred it to pieces like the trust he had betrayed. But now doubts were resurfacing. Maybe the note did mean something after all. Maybe, for all Connie’s problems, Vincent really had loved her; Kat had certainly thought so.
Eleanor stood very still, seeing again the view through the gap in her parents’ bedroom door: her mother on the bed, her father moving on top of her. Submission rather than consensual sex. Or maybe that wasn’t right either. Eleanor shivered as a terrible new possibility occurred to her. Kat had been such an uncanny replica of their mother. Could that have been what her sister was referring to? That Vincent’s violations were simply a perverted quest to experience an echo of what he had lost. In which case it might have been purely Eleanor’s resemblance to her father that had kept her safe.
Slowly, Eleanor took the Bible from Vincent’s lap and placed it next to the poinsettia. There had been darkness in her childhood, a darkness she had sensed rather than seen. She had to accept that and learn to live with it. She would never have all the answers.
‘Goodbye Dad,’ she said bitterly, sliding out of the room, leaving the tea the carer had brought her untouched.
She had reached Reception when a disbelieving voice said, ‘Eleanor?’
It took a moment for the broad-bellied man in a black anorak standing by the door to merge with the shy, short boy who had waved at her from tractors and pressed his mouth so keenly over hers whenever she let him. ‘Charlie Watson, oh my goodness.’
Charlie shook his head incredulously. ‘Eleanor Keating. Wow.’ He reached to shake her hand and then clumsily kissed her cheek. ‘I can’t believe it. What brings you here?’
‘My father. It’s been a long time now… Alzheimer’s…’
‘Oh, I see. Oh dear.’ His round face fell, genuinely crestfallen. ‘That’s too bad. He was nice, your dad… at least.’ He smiled sheepishly, showing some of the jumble of his teeth. ‘Well, he was weird and like something from the Old Testament and we were all terrified of him, but apart from that he was really nice.’
Eleanor laughed a little sharply but was glad Charlie was just as sweet and kind as she remembered. ‘What about you? Do you have someone here too?’
‘Not as such. My sister, Gill – half-sister – Dad remarried – works here, but her car was playing up so I dropped her off. But how the hell are you anyway?’ he went on eagerly. ‘Are you living round here now?’
‘Oh no, I’m in London.’ Eleanor looked pointedly at her watch. She had no desire to tell Charlie Watson how she was. It was nice but also unsettling to have bumped into him, proof, though she hardly needed it, that the past never quite left anyone alone. ‘I’m good thanks, but I am afraid I can’t chat.’
‘No. Fine. Here, let me get that.’ He leapt forward gallantly to open the heavy front door before she reached it. Then followed her out.
Outside, it was already dark and much colder. Eleanor tucked her hands into her coat. ‘So, do you still farm?’
Charlie flipped up the hood of his anorak, shaking his head ruefully. ‘We were only ever tenants and it just got impossible to make a decent living. My wife and I run a garden centre at Crowsborough now – the one on the roundabout – everything from tomatoes in a bag to cappuccinos. Hey, you wrote a book, didn’t you?’ he blurted, giving her an awkward nudge that reminded her of the shyness she had once liked so much.
‘Oh, that was ages ago. Nowadays I mostly teach… idle kids doing retakes… you know the sort of thing.’ She looked round with mounting desperation for Howard’s car, but it wasn’t where he had dropped her. ‘Well, Charlie, nice to see you. I’m glad life’s clearly treating you well.’
‘Can’t complain,’ he agreed. ‘Got the mortgage and the marriage and the two-point-two kids…’
Eleanor had spotted Howard at last, parked under a hedge and she gave him a wave.
‘I am glad you’ve got someone,’ Charlie murmured, following her gaze.
‘Yes. Thanks. You too. Good luck with everything.’
‘Someone you know?’ enquired Howard when she was back in the car.
‘Yes, from way back. Charlie Watson. A neighbour from Broughton days. Nice guy. I didn’t tell him about Kat, though, I couldn’t face it.’
‘No, I find that. You have to choose who you tell, don’t you?’
‘Yes, you do.’
‘Because it takes so much to manage it.’
‘Yes, it does.’
They both sat in silence for a moment.
‘So. How did it go in there?’
‘I don’t want to see him again. Ever. All I want is to speak to Kat. I want to tell her sorry. I want to tell her that she was brave and a total idiot. I want to hear her say she loves me.’
Howard put out his arm and pulled her close enough to rest her head on his shoulder. Eleanor wept quietly for a few moments and then sat up, apologising for leaving smears on his coat.
At the station, Howard held her in a proper hug, similar to the one with which he had greeted her three days before. When they pulled apart, his green eyes were moist. ‘It would be nice to see more of you. Can we see more of you?’
‘Yes, I’d like that.’
‘Soon?’
‘Soon.’
The train thundered in. Howard waited on the platform until she was seated and then walked alongside, waving as it pulled away.