The Astonishing Return of Norah Wells (29 page)

Willa rubs her eyes, not sure whether she dreamt the cry of Mrs Fox or whether it was real.

A scream rips through the dawn. It wasn't her dream. Mrs Fox is calling her.

Willa hopes that when the cubs are born they'll be warm and cosy and snug and looked after. She wonders whether fox cubs can have two mummies like she does. Maybe Willa could be an adoptive mummy to the cubs, like Mrs Fox is a second mummy to Kristoffersen.

She heads downstairs.

‘Nat,' she whispers, tugging at his T-shirt.

Willa has to be careful not to wake Mummy Norah because they're snuggled in so close.

She leans in to his ear. ‘Nat, it's Mrs Fox – she needs us.'

Nat opens his eyes, blinks and then smiles.

‘Will you come with me?' She motions her hand for him to join her.

He nods and eases his small body out from under his mummy's arm. Mummy Norah makes some muttering sounds and turns to face the wall.

Willa takes his hand and together they walk out into the back garden; their bare feet leave small prints in the long wet grass.

They crouch by the gap under the gooseberry bush and wait. But Mrs Fox isn't there.

Then there's a cry from the road.

‘Maybe she's chosen a new place to give birth,' says Willa.

The children run round the house and on to Willoughby Street. The man in the rainbow jumper stops singing and smiles at them.

‘Look!' Willa points to the end of the road.

Nat gives a little skip of delight. She knew he'd see the foxes too.

‘We're going to help her! Come on!'

She pulls Nat up the road. There's another rumble overhead and it starts raining.

In the boyfriend's bed in the flat above the post office, the teenage girl wakes up with a start to the roar of an engine. A van driving too fast. And then a clap of thunder.

She gets up and goes to the window. Headlights tear down the street.

Idiot
, she thinks.

Under the rain, a mist rises from the pavement, like it does before a beautiful day. Today she's going to race alongside the boy she loves – nothing's going to spoil that. And after the race she'll come back here and she'll stay here until The Mother Who Left and her brother and her little boy have gone. The teenage girl knows who her family is, and it doesn't include them.

On Willoughby Street the little boy and the little girl break into a run.

Over there!
the little girl cries.
Mrs Fox
– I knew she'd come back!

It's a little late, but her birthday present has arrived: Mrs Fox and her babies. Soon they'll all be together. Even the dog she loves will get used to them – she'll teach him to love them and look after them and make him his own.

In the tall red-brick house, the big dog's mind rises up from the fog of sleep. He's had an interrupted night: the dreams, the storm, the singing outside. All he wants to do is to sink back into sleep. But his paws tingle. There are people missing from the house. And then he hears a cry, followed by small footsteps on the pavement.

His heart beats faster.

How did they disappear without him waking up?

He runs through the open front door and presses his paws into the tarmac and feels the vibrations of small footsteps. They're moving away.

He sees the man with the rainbow jumper.

Over there,
the man whispers and jerks his head towards the end of the street.

The old ladies stand at the fence, looking up the road, their brows wrinkled up.

Two small dots skipping away up the road.

A clap of thunder.

The sky lights up and dims.

The rain falls harder.

There was a storm on the night he was separated from his mother. She'd got his siblings to the shelter, but he was left behind. As the biggest and the strongest, she'd thought he'd make his own way to safety. Only he never found them.

A fox stands on the edge of the pavement, ahead of Willa and Nat; a growl rises in Louis's throat. He's not going to let her get hurt again.

He lurches into a run.

In the bedroom of the tall red-brick house, the father rolls over and falls into a deeper sleep.

Downstairs, The Mother Who Left stirs. She's going to find a way to win them all back. Even the teenage girl. She's made a mess of the last few days but today's going to be different. Everyone's here now. And she's going to tell them the truth, and then they'll start again.

She reaches out to hug the little boy but there's a cool space beside her. Her heart jolts. Where is he? She leaps out of bed.

At the end of Willoughby Street the little girl and the little boy, their fingers entwined, reach the spot where the fox stands on the pavement. They hold their breath and watch as the fox walks towards them.

In the main bedroom of the tall red-brick house, The Mother Who Stayed hears a loud bark and pulls away from the father.

Willa!
 

She jumps out of bed.

Outside, the big dog runs towards the children, panting heavily, the rain blurring his eyes.

Fay feels a flutter in her womb. Not sick, for once. She strokes her stomach and imagines the small life growing inside her. It should make her feel whole, shouldn't it, something that belongs to her, that no one can take away? Except she's never felt so alone.

The electricity went off in the storm last night, so she has to feel her way down the stairs. She pushes open the door to Willa's room; her bed's empty.

‘Louis!' she calls. When Fay woke up and didn't find him lying at the foot of her bed, she was sure he'd come down to sleep next to her little girl. ‘Louis!' she cries again.

Times of stress
…
changes from the routine
…
those are the times to watch for
, the sleep specialist had told her. She should have guessed that, with all this going on, Willa's sleep would be disturbed.

In the hallway, Fay bumps into Norah. Fay pushes past her and calls out:

‘Willa!'

Norah catches her arm.

‘I can't find Nat either,' Norah says.

A bark from the road.

‘Louis!' Fay runs out of the house, Norah following.

Through a curtain of rain, they see the busker, his big rucksack hitched on his shoulders, his trumpet case swinging from his hand. He holds up his hand to wave and then disappears down the road.

At the other end of the street a little boy and a little girl crouch over the kerb; they're staring at something. And running towards the children is Louis, his bulk swaying from side to side, his tongue hanging out.

A tile falls from the roof. Fay grabs Norah and pulls her out of the way.

Mist rises off the pavement.

Fay's chest burns.

‘Willa!' she yells as a white van, its headlights on full beam, swerves into the road.

Adam dreams that the house is caught in a tornado. The wind spins and spins and lifts off the roof. The roof rises into the clouds and floats above Holdingwell. The staircase falls away. He grabs at the walls but they crumble in his hands. Dust rises from the crumbling bricks, clogging his eyes and nose and mouth. He can't breathe. The world goes dark.

When his eyes clear, he's standing alone on an empty patch of land. No roof or walls, no staircase, just a big open sky.

He calls their names:

Fay!
 

Willa!
 

Ella!
 

…
Nat!
He doesn't want to lose him.

Nat!
he calls again.

But none of them answer.

 

Adam wakes to the slam of the front door. He reaches out for Fay, but her side of the bed is empty. He sits up.

Has she left me already? I needed time to find the words
…
today I was going to tell her
…
 

He scans the room. Her suitcase is still there.

Six years ago, Fay had stood on their doorstep and handed Willa to him.

Norah didn't come to collect her,
she'd said.

As Adam held Willa, her small limbs tucked in to his arms, she'd looked from him to Fay, her mouth a perfect O. They'd waited for her to unleash one of her long, mournful wails, but it never came.

She hasn't cried since Norah dropped her off this morning,
Fay said.

Adam had looked back into Willa's face, her brown eyes wide, and had felt certain that she knew it all: that Norah had left, that she was too far away, now, to hear her little girl's cry, and that it was his fault. Maybe Willa already knew, then, that she had a new mother.

 

On the landing, Adam calls out for Ella, but she doesn't answer. He climbs up the stairs to the attic: her room is still empty.

Willa isn't in her room either.

He checks the bathroom. Looks at the corner where the changing table used to be.

He closes his eyes and thinks again about the night Fay brought Willa back.

Fay was downstairs, making up a bottle of formula as though she'd done such things her whole life. He was angry at her for knowing what to do, for being here instead of Norah.

Willa stared up at him from her changing table, silent. He'd pulled open the press studs of her Babygro, eased her small limbs out of her vest. A warm, rancid smell rose from her nappy.

I don't know how to do this,
he whispered to her.

A knock on the door.

I'm dealing with it, Fay. We'll be down in a minute.
 

Dad?
Ella pushed open the door, Louis at her side. She stood there in her pyjamas, her long hair shining under the bathroom lights.

Do you need some help, Dad?
 

She came over to the changing table, reached up on tiptoes and stroked Willa's cheek.

He kissed the top of Ella's head.
Yes Ella, I could do with some help.

Ella found the wet wipes, the talcum powder, the fresh nappies, a clean vest and Babygro. And then she gave Adam instructions:

That way round
…
no, that way
…
The tapes go over the sides
…
you need to pull them a bit
…
tighter, Dad, or it will fall off.
 

Eight-year-old Ella was teaching him to be a father.

She kissed Willa's feet and tickled her tummy.
You need to distract her, Dad,
she said and then she looked up at him.
Have you called the police yet, about Mum?

He crouched down to be at Ella's height and took her hands.

Mum's just gone for a little holiday, Ella. You don't need to worry. She'll be back soon.
 

But she wouldn't leave without telling us
—
 

She didn't want you to be upset.
 

Ella blinked.
So she just left? Without saying goodbye?

He nodded, unable to look her in the eye.

 

Adam remembers how, that whole night, he'd waited for Fay to blame him for Norah having left. But she never did.

Downstairs, there's no Louis lying in the den, or on the kitchen tiles.

He thinks of the note, propped up on the kitchen table. Black marks scribbled on the back of a quotation from a roofing firm.
Tell Ella and Willa that I love them.
But how could he tell them that she loved them and, in the same breath, explain that she'd left?

He'd given Fay the note and told her to get rid of it.
Burn it,
he'd said.
I never want to see it again.

He looks around the lounge. Norah is missing, and so is Nat. Only Walter remains, breathing heavily in his sleep.

The house is still here, and the roof has held – but they've all gone.

Adam's eyes fall on the drinks cabinet in the corner, and then he turns away, takes a breath and clenches his jaw. He won't let this happen again. He won't let his family fall apart. Today, he'll take charge: he'll be the man Fay's been training him to be these past six years. He'll make her proud.

A clap of thunder reminds him of the front door slamming a few minutes ago. He goes out and stands under the cherry tree. The wind has stripped it bare; its dark branches reach up into the grey sky.

I'll take charge
…
he whispers to himself again.
I'll look after my family. I'll tell her
…

He knows it now, more than ever, how he feels about her. He's made his decision.

The rain is so heavy that he can't see more than a few feet in front of him. He runs out along the pavement and keeps running until he sees Norah and Fay ahead of him, and a little further on Louis, barking, and beyond him Nat and Willa in their pyjamas. Headlights beam down the street. An engine roars.
Too fast,
he thinks,
it's going too fast.

A fox steps into the road.

Christ!
 

Willa releases her hand from Nat's and runs after the fox.

‘Willa! Stop!' cries Adam. But the wind and the rain swallow his words.

The van gets closer.

The fox freezes.

The van doesn't slow down.

Willa runs after the fox, her arms outstretched. Nat stands on the kerb, his small body frozen.

The fox makes it to the other side; she tumbles onto the grass verge and disappears under a hedge.

Willa stands in the middle of the road.

The van hurtles towards her.

She holds her hand up to her eyes, blinded by the headlights.

‘Willa!' he cries.

But she doesn't move.

Louis bounds in front of her.

Adam runs after him, every muscle in his body strains.

‘Willa!'

The van swerves. It throws Louis's bulk up into the air, where he floats for a moment, as if carried by the wind, before falling with a thud onto the tarmac.

Willa rushes to Louis.

Adam keeps running, but he's too far away.

‘Willa – no!'

The van slows and swerves again, but it can't avoid her. A sheet of metal crashes against the body of a small girl. She falls beside Louis.

Louis opens his eyes and lets out a low whine.

And then silence.