The Silk Factory (17 page)

Emergency services quickly launched a search-and-rescue operation but the child’s body was not found. The child’s sandal was found by a member of the public two days later, four miles away from the site of the original accident.

The Coroner, Andrew Harcourt, recorded a verdict of accidental death and said that there was nothing that Lily’s parents could have done to prevent the tragedy. The child had pulled away from the au pair and had slipped and fallen from the jetty.

Julie Birch from the RNLI said that the tragedy highlights the need for parents to be vigilant around water at all times. ‘Unfortunately these tragic incidents that involve young children around water happen in a matter of seconds where supervision by an adult or carer may be lacking or when they are distracted by other things,’ she said. A few weeks earlier, an older child was caught in a rip current when body-boarding at the bay but managed to climb on to rocks and was subsequently rescued by the emergency services. Last year, five people lost their lives in similar accidents along the North Cornish coast.

A cold horror came over her as if the water was taking
her
, a freezing shock to her skin and then up over her head, rushing in her ears, closing her eyes, filling her nose, her mouth … She gripped the edge of the desk and made herself breathe slowly and deeply. Her instinct about her seaside memories had been right then, that somewhere amongst them lay the awful thing that she couldn’t recall. Even now she knew that she was imagining what had happened rather than remembering; the memory was buried deep, deep as a shipwreck on the seabed. The images she had – the rollercoaster, the yellow whirring object and the blustering wind – were tiny, random echoes, faint as the tolling of a shipwreck’s bell when a storm stirs the depths.

She thought about her parents then. They had run into the sea even though they must have known that it was useless – a tiny child, taken down in an instant. It must have been something too awful to take in; shock numbing their minds against the insupportable. Afterwards, how long had they waited on the quay, watching the lifeboats quartering the bay, still hoping for a miracle? When had they started to wait instead for the sight that would break them? She imagined them standing together, watching the summer evening begin to darken and the lights from the boats sweeping the waves – the boats finally turning and making for dock – the hopelessness.

Had she been with them, she wondered, between them, hands held firmly on either side? Or in her mother’s arms, squeezed tight as though she’d never be let go? And what had happened to Maria? Had they blamed her, railed at her, sent her away? She had no recollection of it. And in the days that followed, had anyone come to support them – maybe May? She vaguely recalled a car journey by the sea with Aunty May sitting beside her in the back seat, while her mother sat in the front, her head resting against the window as if she were sleeping. May had given her a stick of rock and she remembered its sticky sweetness as she sucked it, the car full of silence save for the thrum of the engine. She remembered looking out at the long line of the glittering sea. She put her head in her hands.

‘Everything all right?’ The librarian looked over at her curiously. ‘Did you find what you wanted?’

‘Yes. Yes, thank you.’ Rosie fumbled with the dial, moving quickly away from the story, obliterating it in a blur of words. She picked up her jacket and bag.

‘You sure you’re all right? You know you called out? And you’ve gone very pale …’

‘I’m fine, honestly. Thanks for your help.’ Rosie hurried from the room, out of the library and into the stream of shoppers, slipping gratefully into the indifferent crowd.

At the supermarket she wandered up and down the aisles as if on automatic pilot, scanning the shelves for the things they needed: spaghetti, Dairylea cheese, fromage frais, a mountain of nappies, toothbrushes, porridge oats … The fluorescent lights and the beeping from the checkouts made her headache worse. She saw several people she knew from the village: the Saturday girl from the grocer’s shop, the old boy who put boxes of runner beans outside his door for anyone who left a pound in the tin, other young mums from the reading group that Tally had persuaded Rosie to join with her. At any other time she would have stopped to chat, enjoying the fact that she knew so many people now, relishing the knowledge that she couldn’t go ten yards without bumping into someone from the village and that she was becoming part of that community. On this day though, she nodded and smiled or exchanged a few words, excused herself quickly and pressed on. The sooner she got this done the sooner she could go home.

She passed the deli counter with its pungent smell of smoked cheeses. The assistant, a woman in a pristine white apron and cap, was serving a young man in a Barbour jacket with his back to Rosie. Fleetingly, she registered that he was familiar – something about the way he moved and the set of his shoulders … then she was past and turning down the aisle for household goods, hurrying down the home straight, dumping bleach and furniture polish into the trolley without caring about brands or 3 for 2s.

As she made her way towards the tills she reached the flower section and her feet slowed. Bunches of sweet williams, mixed bouquets of gerbera and carnations, hothouse roses and orchids were arranged in a bank of colour before her. She trailed to a stop. Living up here meant that she hadn’t been to Mum’s grave for months and she pictured the gaudy silk flowers she’d left as a poor substitute for fresh ones in the marble pot at its foot. The photograph from the newspaper floated in front of her eyes. Cut flowers drying and shrivelling in the sun, long ago and far away, a small pile of bouquets left near the water’s edge for want of a grave or a stone to mark a final resting place. I could buy some flowers, she thought, but where would I put them? She reached out to touch the waxy petals of a bunch of lilies and found that her hand was shaking. Bleak, bleak, the graves stretched away in their ordered rows; bleak, bleak, the sea stretched away to the horizon, wholly implacable. She drew her hand back. Pointless. Anything she could do was pointless now.

Slowly, she wheeled her trolley over to the checkout and began piling the shopping on to the belt. The cashier at the next till went off on her break and the queue shuffled across to wait behind Rosie. The checkout girl, who had dyed black hair and thickly pencilled eyebrows, passed the stuff over the scanner. ‘You want bags?’ she said, without looking at Rosie, and shoved a handful towards her. Rosie packed as quickly as she could, conscious of the queue behind her, but her hands didn’t want to do what she told them; she fumbled with a packet of biscuits and dropped it and then stuffed one of the bags too full so that the handles broke as she lifted it. She got her hands underneath it, picked it up and dumped it on top of the rest. The woman immediately behind her pointedly looked at her watch.

‘Eighty-seven pounds fifty,’ the girl said, staring at her screen.

Rosie put her card into the machine and went to key in her PIN. Blank. What the hell was it? It had completely gone from her mind. She tried really hard. It started with a three, didn’t it? The woman behind her was getting out her purse and shunting her trolley forward. Why couldn’t she remember it? For God’s sake, she used it almost every day!

‘Eighty-seven pounds fifty,’ the girl said again in her flat monotone.

Rosie punched in a wild guess at four numbers.
Card Rejected
came up on the screen. The girl’s head jerked up then and turned towards her. She reached across Rosie, yanked the card out and shoved it in again.

‘No, no, it’s all right. I’ll pay by cash.’ Rosie rifled through her purse, pulling out all the notes she had. There was an audible sigh from the woman behind her and a subtle shifting of feet from the rest of the queue. Rosie counted: she only had seventy-five pounds in notes. She picked out the pound coins – she could only make it to eighty. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a small voice, ‘I can’t quite …’

The girl stared at her. ‘I’ll have to get a supervisor to void it,’ she said loudly. She reached down under the counter and rang a bell. A mutter ran down the line and the woman at the front tutted and scowled.

‘Hello, maybe I can help?’ a voice said beside her and Rosie turned to find her solicitor, Mr Marriott, in the unfamiliar outfit of jeans and Barbour jacket, taking a ten-pound note from his wallet.

‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly,’ Rosie said.

‘Of course you can; we can sort it out later. There’s a cash machine just round the corner,’ and he passed the note to the girl, pocketed the change and put the receipt into the trolley before she could say any more about it. He picked up his own carrier bags. ‘How nice to see you. How are things?’ he asked as if he knew her well, steering the trolley away from the till so that the glowering woman could at last move forwards. ‘Are you all right?’ he said in a quieter voice. ‘What about a coffee?’

Rosie glanced at the clock. She was due to take over from Tally at six and babysit until Rob got in from his shift so that Tally could get to her yoga class. She had half an hour … and she felt she was almost on her knees.

Amidst the chatter of voices and the clatter of cutlery echoing in the barn-like space of the supermarket café, they carried their cappuccinos to a table. Mr Marriott slung his Barbour over the back of an orange plastic chair. In place of the office wear of jacket and tie were a checked shirt and chunky sweater in which he looked more comfortable and somehow solid, Rosie thought. The bags he’d dumped on the chair beside him gaped open, revealing a joint of lamb, a bottle of Merlot, two packs of newborn nappies and a tin of first milk formula. Two children then, she thought, remembering his adept manoeuvring of the buggy at his office: a toddler and a new baby. She imagined him cooking dinner while his wife fed the baby … chat in a warm kitchen … a proper family. ‘Thanks for helping me out back there. I was so embarrassed! Lucky for me you were taking time off today,’ she said.

‘Mmm, I’m helping out at home for a bit. Just for a few days to give Viv a break. Mum helps a lot but she’s not as young as she likes to think.’

Rosie nodded, remembering the early days when she first brought Cara home. Her mum had been struggling with a frozen shoulder and couldn’t lift the baby so she’d done all the cooking instead. Even so, Cara had been a wakeful baby and they still could have done with an extra pair of hands.

He spooned sugar into his coffee. ‘How are things going with the house sale?’ he asked.

‘I haven’t got that far yet,’ she said ruefully. ‘I thought if I spruced it up a bit I’d get a better price but there’s more to spruce than I thought.’

‘There always seem to be unforeseen expenses when a relative passes on, don’t there? People often get into a temporary difficulty.’ He looked at her sympathetically.

‘Oh – no, I hadn’t run out of money completely at the till!’ She laughed. ‘I forgot my PIN. Silly really. Mind you, if I don’t get the house done up quickly and sold, it soon might be a different matter.’

He waited, stirring his coffee.

‘Before Mum died I was doing some supply teaching in London but I had to give that up.’ She found herself telling him about Sam taking things badly, the expense of keeping up the rent on the flat and her DIY efforts that were breaking the bank.

‘I’m guessing you’re not allowed to sub-let so you can’t rent the flat out to someone else short-term?’ he said when she’d finished.

‘No, the contract prohibits it – and the landlord lives underneath me so no wiggle room to do anything on the QT.’

‘Hmm.’ He sipped his coffee and gave the problem some thought. At length, he said, ‘Excuse me for asking, but do you feel your solicitor got you a fair settlement in the divorce? Do stop me if I’m intruding but I’m just wondering if we, the firm that is
,
could help in any way?’

‘Well, actually, I didn’t have a solicitor.’ Rosie flushed. ‘It all happened when I was pregnant with Cara, you see. When Josh moved out he based the maintenance payment on us splitting all the bills fifty-fifty.’

‘Fifty-fifty, I see.’ Mr Marriott rubbed his chin. ‘But there are three of you in your household, aren’t there? You retain responsibility for the domicile and all the household expenses, because of the children.’

‘Well, I suppose you could look at it that way,’ Rosie said uncertainly.

He tapped his fingertips together. ‘So there was a transfer order for the property and periodical payments agreed from your spouse, based on figures provided by him,’ he said, sounding all at once back in his professional persona.

‘I suppose so; I can’t really remember the details,’ Rosie said, looking down into her coffee cup. ‘I was in a bit of a state. Josh and I weren’t speaking and work was so hectic and there was Sam’s childcare to arrange; it all went a bit pear-shaped for a while.’ What an idiot I sound, she thought to herself, as though she hadn’t paid proper attention to something really important, as though she’d been so busy fire-fighting she’d ignored the earthquake happening right under her feet. She glanced up, expecting to see a look of professional horror at her lack of savvy but his brow was furrowed in concern, wrinkled in the same way that his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. He’s nice, she thought; he’s really rather nice.

He leant his chin on his fingertips, thinking. ‘So, you were working at the time of the settlement but you’re not working now?’

‘Not until I’ve sorted everything out here, I’m afraid. In fact it’s not really viable until Sam starts school.’

‘Might be worth going back to the court. Once you sell the house it’ll all change again of course but meanwhile you’re providing for your household on a diminished income; there should be grounds for an adjustment.’ He got out his diary. ‘Why don’t we make a date for you to come in to the office again?’

‘If you really think …’ Rosie felt flustered. Josh would be livid and she wasn’t sure if she felt up to taking him on.

‘Say, next Friday?’ Mr Marriott said. ‘Two o’clock? Bring your financial information, bank statements and so on.’

‘OK.’ Rosie nodded slowly. There was no harm in looking into it, was there? She didn’t have to take it up with Josh unless she wanted to. Unless you get up the nerve, you mean, said a voice in her head. She glanced at her watch and finished her coffee. ‘I’m afraid I have to go,’ she said. ‘I’ll just nip to the cash machine and get what I owe you.’