The Shadow Year (37 page)

Lila bristles.
Tom
is hurt? Isn’t she the one who’s supposed to be hurt and angry here? Silence extends across the telephone line. She wants to say something. She wants to ask him about the fall but the words still won’t come.

‘I should probably get back to the boys. It’s my round.’

‘Oh.’

‘You know where I am. I’ll be waiting.’ There is another pause. ‘Take care of yourself, Lila.’

The dial tone comes before she can say another word.

Lila sits there on the verge a while longer, the orange lights of her car flashing on and off, alternately illuminating then hiding one small patch of hedgerow. She doesn’t know how long she stays watching the undergrowth appear and disappear, flash orange to black, orange to black, but eventually she turns the key in the ignition, spins the car around and takes the track all the way back to the cottage.

It’s the first night in a while that she wishes she hadn’t thrown her pills away. She tosses and turns, fretting over her conversation with Tom and eventually, when sleep does arrive, it is filled with a reel of disturbing dreams. The images flicker and race across her shuttered eyelids.

She dreams of her father, seated beside her at the kitchen table, his face twisted with frustration as they pore over her homework. ‘You have to dedicate yourself to this, Lila,’ he says, banging his fist on the table, his dark eyes flashing. ‘You have to commit.’ And the words well up in her:
What about your dedication . . . your commitment, to your wife . . . to your family?
But he has gone and her words are lost like dust on a breeze.

She dreams of a woman drifting through the cottage crooning soft lullabies, accompanied by the papery rustle of honesty seed heads, caught in the waft of a current as she passes by.

She dreams of running down an endless landing, the sound of footsteps chasing her and the shock of hands at her back, tugging at her, sending her tumbling down into a void of indescribable loss.
Just like her
. The words echo through the corridors of her sleep, making her twist and turn, so that she wakes in the morning still tired and with the taste of grief lying heavy on her tongue.

She lies there for a moment, curled in the antique bed, and knows that she can’t face another day of hard physical labour or paint fumes. She needs a break. She wants to walk. William has been inviting her for weeks, even drawn a map of how to find his place on foot, but she’s always found another job to prevent her from visiting. But now she imagines sitting in William’s warm, creaking kitchen with its shining copper pans and pretty check curtains, Evelyn knitting at the table with a warm cat curled in her lap and Rosie stretched at her feet, and knows it’s where she wants to be. She’s sick of her own company and fed up with worrying about Tom and the fall so, after wrapping herself in a warm jumper and a woollen hat and scarf, she strikes out up the hillside, her head down, her feet stomping across the claggy terrain, only once in a while lifting her head to check her bearings against William’s hand-drawn map.

It’s a day for being outside, the air damp and cool, the sun a yellow orb still low in the sky. The bluebells are late to bloom in the Peak District and she notices their lush green stems and drooping blue trumpets as she walks, stooping to pick a handful before continuing on over the moors.

Higher up, she stops for a rest on an old stone wall, removes the hat which is too hot now and making her head itch, then presses on and is surprised when she makes it to the farm in just over an hour. She is greeted on arrival by Rosie’s delighted barks and a pretty ceramic sign on one of the gateposts welcoming her to
Mackenzie Farm
. As she walks through the yard, bursts of cheery yellow daffodils wave at her from their flowerbeds. The scene is a far cry from the snowy vista she remembers on her last, unexpected visit.

‘Well, well,’ calls William, appearing from behind a large green tractor, wiping his hands on a dirty, oil-stained cloth. ‘So you decided to pay us a visit after all?’

She smiles. ‘Is that all right?’

‘Of course. Just wait till Evelyn sees you.’ Rosie wheels in circles at her feet. ‘Come on, Rosie, let’s get the poor girl inside. She’s probably desperate for a cuppa.’

They find Evelyn in the kitchen where she greets Lila like an old friend, tears springing in her pale grey eyes. ‘Oh my dear girl,’ she says, gripping her arm, ‘you came back.’

‘Of course I did. I brought you these,’ she adds, holding out the small bouquet of bluebells. ‘Besides, I told you last time . . . I had to come back to see your jewellery.’

Evelyn beams at her and accepts the small bouquet. ‘They’re lovely. Thank you. I’ll take you upstairs, just as soon as we’ve had that cup of tea.’

‘I’m on it, Mum,’ says William, reaching for the blue and white striped teapot.

After tea and a little small talk, Evelyn leads her up the creaking wooden staircase then pulls her into the tiny room where Lila had first seen the desk of strange tools and implements. Evelyn ignores the table and moves instead to a low wooden chest in the far corner of the room. ‘I keep my treasure in here.’ She blows a thin layer of dust from the lid of the trunk then opens it to reveal two wooden jewellery boxes nestled amongst piles of old photographs, postcards, letters and trinkets. ‘I haven’t looked in here for such a long time . . .’

As Evelyn pulls out the boxes, Lila can’t help herself; she reaches for one of the nearest photographs and studies the faces in the picture. ‘Is this you?’ she asks, pointing to a dark-haired lady in a patterned housecoat.

Evelyn looks at the photo, her eyes clouded with confusion. It takes her a moment but eventually her face breaks with a warm smile of recognition. ‘Yes, that’s me . . . and that’s my Albert,’ she says, pointing to the tall man in a flat cap and baggy corduroy trousers at her side.

‘You made a very handsome couple.’

‘Thank you, dear. He was a good man.’

Lila peers more closely at the smaller figure to their right and tries to identify the outline of William in the faded image of the skinny boy squinting up at the camera, with his dark hair and impressively flared jeans. She laughs. ‘Look at William. Doesn’t he look different?’

‘Yes, doesn’t he?’ says Evelyn glancing across at the photo. ‘He was a funny-looking boy back then. So skinny . . . all ears and legs. Ah, now here we go. Here’s my treasure.’ She passes the first box to Lila and watches as she rummages with excitement through the silver bangles and brooches and necklaces contained within.

‘You made these?’ Lila asks in disbelief. ‘But they’re gorgeous, Evelyn. You have a real talent.’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’

Lila holds up to the light a necklace with a tiny, silver forget-me-not flower pendant hanging from the chain. ‘Well I think they’re absolutely lovely.’

Evelyn’s papery cheeks blush a delicate pink. ‘Thank you, my dear. You can keep that one if you like?’

‘Oh, but I couldn’t. They’re yours.’ She returns the necklace to the jewellery box then turns to meet Evelyn’s gaze. As their eyes connect the elderly woman reaches out and strokes her cheek with the rough palm of her hand and Lila has the strangest feeling that it’s not her she’s looking at but someone else, someone far beyond her skin.

‘I’m so glad you came back,’ she says. ‘We did miss you.’

‘Before you go,’ William says, leading her from the farmhouse towards one of the barns, ‘I thought you might like to see the lambs. There’s a newborn I’m handfeeding.’ He gives her a sideways glance. ‘Want to help?’

‘Sure,’ she says. ‘I’d love to. What do I do?’

‘Follow me.’

William opens the door to the barn and Lila enters its warm, earthy interior. Inside she can hear the soft shuffling and bleating of sheep. ‘She’s over here,’ he beckons, moving past pens of ewes and lambs to a corner of the barn where a white fluffy ball lies alone in a heap of straw.

‘Poor thing,’ she says, ‘she’s so tiny. Why do you have to feed her by hand?’

‘The ewe died in labour.’

‘Oh,’ says Lila, ‘that’s sad.’

He shrugs then reaches for a bottle and Lila watches as he fills it with milk and twists the lid on, giving it a good shake. ‘Here, I’ll show you how to do it.’

Lila is nervous but she follows William’s instructions, kneels down in the straw and lets him place the front legs of the animal over her thighs. At the sight of the bottle the lamb seems to know what to do. She head-butts Lila, eager to get to the milk and almost knocks her over. Lila laughs and lowers the teat to the lamb’s muzzle and soon the animal is tugging and sucking away happily with greedy slurping sounds. ‘This is amazing,’ she says in hushed awe.

‘Isn’t it?’ agrees William.

Lila holds the creature in her arms, closes her eyes and breathes in the sweet scent of straw and the animal’s warm, musky fleece. The lamb is so small and so fragile and it occurs to Lila that the last time she held anything this new and precious had been at the hospital . . . only then there had been no wriggling, warm, life-filled body . . . no heart hammering palpably just beneath her fingers.

She can’t help it. As Lila remembers, she begins to cry. The tears stream down her cheeks and embarrassed, she tries to bury her face in lamb’s fleece so that William won’t see, but it doesn’t work. ‘Oh, Lila,’ he says. She feels him shift beside her, awkward in the presence of her grief.

‘I’m sorry,’ she sniffs, ‘ignore me. I’m an idiot.’

‘No you’re not. Don’t say that.’ He reaches for the lamb and returns her gently to the straw, then pulls Lila to her feet. Before she knows it she is in his arms, William patting her on the back helplessly, over and over. ‘There, there,’ he says, soothing her as if she were a distressed animal, ‘there, there. Let it out. It’s time to let it all out.’

18

MARCH

1981

It’s another interminably wet evening as they gather round the fire. Mac and Kat are playing a game of chess. Ben sits in the old wingback chair, tuning his guitar as a roll-up coils smoke into the air beside him. Carla sits at his feet lost in a book while Freya is curled in her usual position at one end of the sofa darning holes in a pair of tights. Simon appears in the kitchen doorway and clears his throat. No one knows what he is going to say until the words are out of his mouth, cast like pebbles into the stillness of the room. ‘I think you should all know that Freya is pregnant.’

Kat’s hand hovers over her queen. She daren’t look up. The whole room is frozen, not a single breath taken.

‘The baby’s due late June,’ he continues.

The silence stretches on. Kat feels Mac’s gaze shift towards Freya but she can’t look at any of them; instead she keeps her eyes fixed on the black and white squares of the board stretching before her.

‘It’s an exciting time for all of us,’ continues Simon, ‘and she’s going to need our support.’ He hesitates. ‘Any questions?’

No one says a word. Carla shifts on her cushion, then closes her book. Kat is focusing so intently on the chessboard that the chequered squares begin to blur into a sea of grey. Finally Ben clears his throat. ‘Are you feeling OK, Freya?’

‘Yes thank you,’ she answers in a small voice.

Carla sighs. ‘Wow, a baby. I had no idea.’

Kat feels Carla’s gaze move in her direction and she lifts her head and meets her stare head-on, tilts her chin ever so slightly. She won’t have her feeling sorry for her.

Only Mac is yet to move. She can feel tension radiating from him, his body a coiled spring ready to decompress and when she does find the courage to glance at him she can see that his face has flushed an impossible red. Without uttering a word, he rises from their game and leaves the room, pushing roughly past Simon where he stands in the kitchen doorway. Kat sees Freya’s gaze follow him out of the room, her flinch as the back door slams. Simon moves across and takes the seat at the other end of the sofa to her. ‘See,’ he says, ‘it’s fine. I don’t know why you were so worried.’

Freya gives the slightest nod and Kat understands then that the announcement had been planned. Simon and Freya had discussed it in advance. They were in it together.

It really feels as though winter is never going to end. The cottage is cold and damp and filled with the unpleasant smell of mouldy trainers and laundry that has taken too long to dry. Everyone is sick of being cooped up in such a small, dank space. By now they’d hoped for spring vegetables and sunshine, primroses and puffy white clouds, but the sky above the valley is an endless sea of grey, continually lashing rain, and nothing much remains in the pantry but some rice and a few jars of dried beans. Even worse, everyone is tiptoeing awkwardly around each other now that the news of Freya’s pregnancy is out in the open. The revelation has rocked them all in different ways and altered the dynamics of the group trapped inside the cottage.

Kat can barely stand to be in the same room as Freya but whenever she comes across her, she finds her eyes drawn by some twisted force to her sister’s growing belly. The sight of it horrifies her, and yet she can’t seem to stop herself. Freya is at pains to hide it, wafting around in her baggiest dresses and flowing scarves or some days not even bothering to change out of her nightie, but it’s no use; her clothes grow tighter by the day and it’s visible to them all now, the swell of her baby bump jutting out to stretch the fabric taut across her body.