Bitterwood, 1931
With infinite care, he lifted her into his arms and staggered through the dark house, out into the garden. She weighed almost nothing, as though her living soul had been the only thing giving her substance.
Treading heavily across the grass, he went downhill towards the orchard, through the weeping mulberry trees she had loved. The stars were brilliant, the garden black with shadows. When he reached the leafy hollow where the icehouse lurked unseen, he paused, breathless.
Drinking in the night air, he blinked to clear his eyes, clutching her to him, wishing he could turn back time, wishing . . . But no, he would not let his mind revisit what he had done. Later, in the dusty quiet of his room, among his books and familiar things, he would crumble. But not here, not now.
The trees around him blurred, the sea breeze blew icy on his cheeks. He pressed his lips to her forehead, a familiar, comforting gesture – but the chill in her skin, the clammy stickiness of sweat and blood, and the vague dark odour of death brought the realisation crashing down.
He had lost her.
The linchpin that held the fragments of his world together, the singular ray of hope in his grey life; she was gone. He could only blame himself. He had tried to contain her in the prison of his love, but instead he had smothered her. He had wanted to keep her safe, protect her, give her the life he had envisaged for her, a good life. Instead, he had clipped her wings, stolen from her everything she held dear.
No one could know. If anyone asked, he would say she had moved on, gone back to her family. Returned to her old life, the life she had lived before him. The life he had always resented so bitterly—
A murmur drifted from the darkness. His breath came quick as he searched the pale smudge of her face in the moonlight. Shadows danced over her features, playing tricks with his mind. He prayed for a sign – another murmur, a whisper of forgiveness, the faint utterance of his name. Not that he would have heard it; the booming pulse in his ears was deafening. Minutes ticked away. His ears and eyes began to ache, so keenly alert were they, but still he could not move. The sound came again, clearer this time. Hope ebbed away. It was not her breath he had heard, not her whisper, merely the scratch of dry leaves along the brick path in the orchard.
Regathering her against him, he forced his numb legs to take one measured step after another. Slowly, he made his way through the darkness to the icehouse.
‘You’ll be safe now, my darling. I’ll be here to watch over you always.’
The keys were in his pocket. He fumbled them out and then somehow forced them into the lock. The door creaked, opening into deeper dark. A gust of damp billowed out, and with it came the smell of earth and stone, of air undisturbed for many years. Air that would, as of this night forth, remain undisturbed for many more years to come.