My bones ached, my mouth was dry. I was desperate for a cup of tea. My father’s voice rang up the stairs. ‘Rebecca? Come and see me in the study please.’
Five minutes later he called again. ‘Rebecca, come down now.’
I dragged myself out of bed. Eleven o’clock, Sunday morning. I was at least three hours late for breakfast. My parents had gone to church with Emily for the nine o’clock service and come back, drank coffee and eaten their crackers and cheese and still I’d slept.
I sat on the parishioner side of my father’s large oak desk. There was a leather-bound rectangular pad of blotting paper inserted in the middle of the desk. I thought it was to soak up the tears if sadness struck. My father wrote all his sermons here in ink, I could see all the upside-down letters on the pad from where I sat in the hard chair. My whole body ached; I was getting sick, a cold, a fever—something had infected me in the cold, the rain, the mist from all that fog.
‘Rebecca.’
I said nothing.
‘Rebecca, I’m surprised you slept through that storm. That was a wild night.’
Father, you have no idea how truly wild it was. Where had she gone now?
My father leaned back in his captain’s chair and balanced the tips of his fingers on the desk. This was my father’s most thoughtful position. The chair had once been part of the captain’s room on board whichever ship it belonged to. The sturdy wooden base of the chair had been screwed down into the ship’s wooden floor to hold it in place on the high seas, to keep the captain from rolling or spilling from the chair, which my father was never in any danger of doing. It had large wooden armrests, a leather seat held in place with shining brass tacks and the cleverest thing—a spring-loaded device upon which the chair could rock backwards and forwards if the chair’s occupant so desired. Which now he did.
The hard-backed chair I sat in was the unyielding chair, reserved for those with appointments to discuss baptisms, marriages, confirmations and spiritual quests. No movement was possible, except a dash out of it.
My father stared at me through his tortoiseshell glasses and rocked backwards and forwards on his chair.
‘I don’t feel well.’ That was my spirited defence.
‘Not surprised. I did say dinner was at six, yet you chose not to return until half past nine. No dinner, soaking wet.
Your mother and I had no idea where you were. We presumed you were with Alex March.’ My father really did not like him.
‘I wasn’t wearing a watch.’
‘Not an acceptable excuse, I’m afraid. We do not want you out cavorting . . .’
‘Cavorting?’
‘Cavorting around the place with someone who is old enough to know better.’
He leaned as far back as the chair allowed, the spring squeaking in protest. ‘You can walk the dog, if you like. But no more staying out half the night and coming back in that state. Leaving all those wet clothes in the kitchen for your mother to clear up this morning.’
‘I didn’t leave it there for Mum to do.’
‘But she did it, because, in case you haven’t noticed, I have been taking services all morning.’
Fields and fog flashed before my eyes. Fields and fog and ghosts. I was tired of sitting on that hard chair. I pictured her standing in the middle of the road, black arms stretched into the sky, the night indistinguishable from where she began and ended.
‘You can walk the dog. You can clean the house. You can do Saturdays at the pub. But that is all. Do you understand, Rebecca?’
‘Yes, I understand, Father.’
‘One last thing.’
‘What?’
‘Someone’s been nicking my best paper. Do you know anything about that?’
‘It’s not me, is it? I have a journal, don’t I?’
Outside my father’s study the sun beckoned. It was a normal-looking day. Everything in the house was normal. Kitchen, table, kettle, fridge, pantry, sink, normal. Father giving it to me straight, normal, normal, normal. Emily playing the piano in the dining room, as if it were the most normal thing in the world to do.
‘Where did you get to last night, Rebecca?’ said my sister, as innocent as an angel.
‘Have you been taking Dad’s paper?’
‘No! Don’t blame me just ’cause you’re in trouble.’
‘Shut up, Emily.’
Not a single cloud, raindrop, ghost or donkey in sight. Hot tea slid down my throat. Lots of sugar. When in doubt, walk.
The churchyard was deserted. The oak trees full of budding green leaves. Muddy puddles everywhere from the rain. A pool of murky water in the middle. I climbed through the low branches of the yew tree that scraped along the ground and sat in the tree’s ancient sprawl staring at the sky. Silence pressed against my head. Perhaps nothing I’d seen was real. I’d just been having a snog in the barn and the field was full of fog. Two donkeys lived in the field. The trees were full of crows. Flora had been out walking. Full stop. End of story. All right, Father, I will walk the dog. Clean the house. Work at the pub. Wash the dirty glasses. Nothing more.