I had a slight niggle about Jem all day while I was at work. The downside of my new job was that it really wasn’t very busy, nor absorbing. And that meant I had lots of time to fret. I was worried that Cassie could have worked out who Jem was, and befriended her just to get the gossip about Alistair. Did teenagers care about old television presenters? I wasn’t sure. The girls at Jem’s old school certainly had, but I had a sneaking suspicion that was more about them sensing a weakness than the story itself. I had always hated the ‘mean girls’ cliché but there were definitely some queen bees at that school who had made it their business to make some of their classmates’ lives a misery. And unfortunately, Alistair’s arrest and trial put Jem firmly in their sights.
I tried not to think about Alistair’s arrest and the court case and the awfulness that followed if I could avoid it but I found that no matter how hard I tried to forget, it just kept popping into my head and forcing me to remember how my charming, handsome husband, the darling of the press, became a villain overnight. Of course I had stood by him at first. Why wouldn’t I when he was standing in front of me, ashen-faced, telling me it was all a big mistake? That he barely knew this woman who was saying such awful things – he’d only ever seen her in the corridor or maybe taking notes in a production meeting. She must be mentally ill, he told me, his eyes filling with tears. She needs our sympathy, not our anger. I’d taken him in my arms, amazed by his generosity and promising I’d be right by his side.
But then another woman came forward, and another. And he was charged, and we were hurtled into the awfulness of courts and custodial sentences. And they were so young, these women. Not teens – not like the rumours said – but interns young enough to be his daughter. Fresh out of university and eager and excited to get started in their television career until my disgusting husband made it dirty and spoiled.
I tapped my keyboard to bring my screen back to life and sighed. The will I was drafting wasn’t exactly gripping and I needed a distraction from my thoughts, so I pushed my chair back from my desk and went in search of tea. The firm’s receptionist, Judy, was in the kitchen with Marcus – a law student who helped Mr Langdown sometimes. They were watching something on Judy’s phone.
‘Cat videos?’ I said, turning on the tap to fill the kettle.
Judy looked up. ‘Ooh if you’re making one, yes please.’
I took two mugs out of the cupboard and raised an eyebrow at Marcus who nodded, still gripped by the action on the phone. I added another mug and dropped three teabags in.
‘What is it?’ I asked, wondering what had them so enthralled.
‘Some MP has accidentally shared a saucy message on Twitter,’ Marcus said. ‘Look. It was clearly meant for his wife, but he made it public. It’s filthy and totally hilarious. Though people are being pretty mean about her, which isn’t great.’
I glanced at the screen as he showed me the comments people were making about the wife’s appearance, and made a face. ‘Urgh. What happened to “be kind” eh?’
Judy looked half ashamed, half gleeful. ‘We’re just watching the … what did you call it, Marcus?’
‘Pile on,’ Marcus said with relish. ‘He’s deleted the message but everyone’s screen grabbed it so he can’t deny it. Everyone’s talking about it.’ He bit his lip. ‘Shame they’re being so nasty about her, though.’
I concentrated on stirring the tea and pouring on the milk, hoping they couldn’t see my hands shaking. It was so easy to make mistakes on social media. To write something in anger or without double-checking that your meaning was clear. Or – apparently – to share something publicly that should have been private. Thinking about my own error made me feel sick. My ‘pile on’ had been quite early on in that nightmarish time when Alistair had been arrested and the police had been in our house night and day, searching our bedroom, and the study, and Jem’s room. They’d taken the computer from the lounge as well as my work laptop and Jem’s phone. And all the neighbours saw, of course, even though our house was large and set back from the road. You can’t miss a load of police cars and streams of uniformed officers carrying out laptops and monitors. I think that’s where the rumours that Alistair had groomed young girls started, which is totally understandable. If I’d seen it happen to a neighbour, I’d have assumed that too.
When news of the arrest hit the papers, it got even worse. Jem’s school was supportive enough at first but when it became clear that it wasn’t all some big misunderstanding, that soon faded away. They had a reputation to protect, after all. So there was no punishment for the girls who followed her round all day asking questions about her ‘pervy dad’ and no consequences for the former friend who spread rumours about Alistair eyeing her up when she came to Jem’s birthday party.
When Jem came home in floods of tears for what felt like the hundredth time, I snapped. On my newly returned phone I typed a tweet about the silly girls who were making my daughter’s life a misery.
‘Silly girls should think about their actions before ruining people’s lives,’ I wrote because I had some sort of conscience and I didn’t want to name the girls or the school. But that backfired because everyone thought I meant the women who’d accused Alistair, of course – they didn’t know about the school bullies. Within seconds I had hundreds of comments telling me I was victim blaming, calling me a sad, vicious old woman who had been brainwashed by her paedo husband, saying all sorts of awful things. I realized how stupid I’d been putting anything on social media and deleted it straightaway but the damage was done. And then it all got even worse …
‘Tess?’ I jumped, startled out of my memories by Marcus who’d put his phone away and was waiting patiently for the cup of tea I’d promised.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘In a world of my own.’
He nodded, eyeing me thoughtfully. I wondered if he knew who I was. He didn’t appear to and I was glad.
*
Jem was in really good spirits that evening which made me feel more comfortable. I wanted her to make friends, despite my nerves, and Cassie actually sounded really nice. Jem was full of stories about Cassie, and Cassie’s bedroom, and Cassie’s brother and sister, and Cassie’s mum, and chatting about school and how she was going to audition for the school play. She was even excited about her history project which I was pleased about because I liked history. Jem had never shown much interest before.
‘Cassie’s mum went for a run while I was there,’ she said, as we sat on the sofa with an old episode of Friends playing in the background. ‘I thought maybe you could go running again. You used to like that.’
She looked at me in a way that made me realize with a start that perhaps she worried about me just as much as I worried about her. Poor girl. She’d had so much to deal with the last year or so since Alistair’s arrest. It had all just been one long drawn-out nightmare.
‘Maybe I will,’ I said. ‘That’s a good idea.’
Jem grinned and I relaxed a bit. ‘Tell me about your project.’
‘Ohmygod,’ she said, jumping to her feet and getting her school bag. ‘It’s so cool. Did you know everyone calls this house the witch’s cottage?’
‘I did not know that,’ I said, with a small shudder, thinking of the names I’d been called when the truth about Alistair came out. ‘It’s not because we live here is it?’
‘Duh, no,’ Jem said. She pulled her history folder out of her bag. ‘Cassie’s sister, Thea, said there were loads of witches in North Berwick and she reckons one of them must have lived here.’
‘Goodness,’ I said. ‘I suppose this cottage is very old. It’s one of the oldest buildings in the whole town, I think.’
‘So Cassie and me are going to find out about the witches that lived here. It’s supposed to link the present and the past, so it fits perfectly.’
‘Cassie and I,’ I said automatically. ‘What have you found out so far?’
Jem shrugged. ‘Nothing yet,’ she admitted. ‘We got a bit distracted on Instagram.’
My stomach lurched. ‘Jem, you know I don’t want you on social media.’
She sighed. ‘I’m not on social media. I was looking on Cassie’s phone.’ She turned away from me and I heard her mutter, ‘Everyone else is on it.’
I understood that it was hard for her not to be online like her friends, but I knew all too well how easy it was for people to send horrible, nasty messages on social media. Messages and comments that stuck in your head, no matter how much you tried to dismiss them or laugh them off. Threats against you, or your loved ones. Or once, even against our family pets. Rape threats. Death threats. All sorts. So I wasn’t budging on my social-media ban, no matter how much Jem begged me.
Wanting to distract her, I got my laptop from the bookshelf and opened it up. ‘Shall we have a look?’
The lure of finding out about the witches who’d lived in our house was too tempting for Jem to keep sulking. To my relief, she turned back to me and smiled. ‘Google it,’ she said.
I typed in witches and North Berwick and was rewarded with dozens of hits.
‘Oh my,’ I said. ‘It was quite a thing.’
Together, Jem and I read about the witch trials in our town, the accusations of dark deeds, which sounded ridiculous to our modern ears, and the torture of women, which didn’t sound so ridiculous.
‘It’s horrible,’ Jem said, wide-eyed. ‘Can we try to find the one who lived in our cottage?’
I thought for a second and then searched for ‘witch, Forth Street, North Berwick’. Nothing came up.
‘Perhaps the street had a different name back then,’ I said.
Jem was looking thoughtful. ‘I think I know how to find it,’ she said.
‘Really?’
‘Come on.’ She jumped to her feet and disappeared into the hall, then came back wearing her coat – finally – and shoes. ‘Come on, Mum.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘You’ll see.’
I pulled on my boots and my own coat, and together we went outside into the dark street, Jem leading the way.
‘Here,’ she said in triumph as we reached the corner. ‘I lean against it when I’m waiting for Cassie.’
It was an information board aimed at tourists, showing some history of North Berwick. Jem got her phone out and shone the light at the pictures.
‘There’s an old map,’ she said. ‘I was looking at it this morning.’
I squinted at the board in the dim light. ‘I think this map is a bit later than the witches would have been,’ I said, trying to read the date.
‘Still could help.’
That was true. I looked again, trying to get my bearings. ‘So that’s the harbour, there,’ I said, pointing. ‘And that’s what’s now Forth Street. Shine the torch here, Jem.’
She obliged and I grinned. ‘It’s called Church Street,’ I said.
Jem clapped her hands. ‘Church Street. Let’s go and look that up, then.’
We hurried back to the house because it was chilly, with a real autumnal feel to the evening, and I made tea while Jem googled Church Street, North Berwick and witches, and gave a yelp of triumph.
‘I’ve found them,’ she said. ‘At least, I think I’ve found them.’
I took the mugs of tea through and put them on the coffee table. ‘Show me.’
‘Look, this is someone’s dissertation or something. It’s like a massive project on witches in Scotland,’ she said. She looked up at me and gave me a cheeky grin. ‘Maybe Cassie and I can just copy this whole thing.’
‘Jem,’ I said. ‘Don’t even think about it.’
‘Joke.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Look, Honor Seton is on this list here of accused witches. Her address is given as Church Street, and it says she was 35.’
‘Considerably younger than me,’ I said wryly.
Jem zoomed in on the list, looking pleased. ‘And it says she lived with her daughter Alice, who was 16. Maybe Alice was a witch too?’
I felt a bit uncomfortable. A mum with a teenage daughter, in our house, being accused of all sorts. It was a strange coincidence. ‘None of them were actually witches, Jem,’ I said, more sharply than I intended. I forced myself to smile and look more interested. ‘So what happened to them? Were they burned at the stake?’
‘It doesn’t say,’ Jem said, leaning forward. ‘There’s a photo of the original document. Hang on.’
She enlarged the picture, which was of a list of accused witches from the seventeenth century. It was written in old-fashioned hand, difficult – if not impossible – to read, without the helpful typed text beneath translating it for our twenty-first-century eyes. But there was nothing about the outcome of the trial – simply that it was said to be happening.
‘I’m sure we can find out what happened, now we know their names. Cassie’s mum could find us some books. Or she said one of the people who work at the museum with her might know more.’ Jem’s eyes were gleaming with interest. I drank in her happiness, pleased to see how much she was enjoying this. ‘Isn’t it funny, that we’re a mother and daughter living here, just like they were?’
‘Let’s hope we’re not accused of witchcraft,’ I said, stifling a yawn. ‘Gosh, I’m beat. I think it’s bedtime for me.’
‘I’ll come up too,’ said Jem, who may have been bolshy and independent, but still didn’t like being downstairs by herself.
I pulled her to me and kissed her temple. ‘You go on up, sweetheart, and get your stuff ready for the morning. I’ll be up in a minute. Remember to plug your phone in down here, please.’ That was another rule – no phones in the bedroom. I didn’t want Jem scrolling and stumbling on anything about her father. Or about me. I liked to know what she was looking at, although I knew I couldn’t control that all the time.
Jem threw me her phone to plug in, then she stuffed her books back into her bag and headed up to bed, calling a cheery goodnight to me as she went. I took our mugs into the kitchen. As I rinsed them out, I noticed the bin was overflowing. Jem had a very irritating habit of balancing rubbish on top like a smelly game of Jenga. Tutting, I pulled the bag out of the bin, tied it up, shoved my feet into the sliders I kept by the back door for this very reason, and went out to the wheelie bin.
The wind had really got up and the crashing of the waves was loud in the quiet night. I shivered as I dropped the bag into the bin, and let the lid close. Winter was definitely on its way.
A noise in the dark garden made me start, my heart thudding. Those witch stories had spooked me a little. I stayed still for a second, but there was nothing there – it must have been the wind.
I turned to go back inside and jumped again as a black cat ran in front of me.
‘Christ,’ I said, clutching my chest in fright. ‘Where did you come from?’ The little cat sat down and regarded me in the light from the kitchen without interest. I reached out a hand to stroke its head, and it hissed at me, making me recoil. ‘Oh,’ I gasped. The cat darted off into the darkness, leaving me shaking my head at my jumpiness. No more reading about witches before bed, I thought. It was clearly a bad idea.