Ghostbird Page 10

  When Dora died, another existence began for Violet: empty days and meaningless months. Teilo’s death was a blank. At first too numb to take it in, Violet became too full of rage to care. She remembered wanting her mother, and being both confused and frightened by her longing.

  Now and then, haunted by Madeleine’s perfume, the ironically named, Je Reviens, Violet would catch a shred of it on the air. And even though she had run, to make sure her mother would never find her, occasionally she caught herself looking back. All she ever saw was moonlight; all she ever heard was the slam of a car door.

  Violet loathed cars, they reminded her of Teilo, and the man on his way to Canada.

  ‘Would you like a lift?’ Lili would ask.

  ‘No thanks, I get travel sick.’

  It wasn’t entirely true. However cold the day, even in the middle of winter when snow lay as thick as clouds and she had to stamp her feet on the pavement as she waited for the bus, the thought of getting into a car made Violet break out into a sweat.

  Lili gave up, and Violet travelled by bus.

  She watched the rain and wondered what it might be like to live in a dry climate where people trod sand into your house, where you dreamt of mirages and hibiscus and cactus plants so exotic they flowered only once a year. Violet had never been anywhere hot.

  For a long time following the tragedies, when the scent of lake water drifted through the village, its familiar sweetness had turned pungent and heavy. No one went to the lake for weeks, partly out of respect, and also from fear. The few who did swore they heard voices in the reeds, insisted that the birds had gone and the water was so dark they could no longer see a reflection. Years later there were still people who wouldn’t even walk past Tŷ Aderyn, never mind go down to the lake.

  Violet had refused to leave the house. She sat at the window until night fell, watched the dark sky and imagined falling into it. She spoke to no one and when she finally slept, it was either too deep for dreaming or made of nightmares.

  First thing in the morning, when she woke to the birds they sounded like a child laughing. And even when she pulled the duvet over her head and covered her ears with both hands, Violet could still hear them.

  The lake shimmers with dragonflies. Enchanted, the child watches, her small hand outstretched as if she might catch one. On the far side of the lake the water is pillowed with afternoon mist. Along the grassy bank, meadowsweet drifts and the sun burns in a perfect sky.

  At the edge of the lake, brown fish dart in the shallows. The child looks down and smiles. It is so quiet she can hear the leaves sharing confidences.

  Listen…

  She dips her hand, scoops some water and watches as tiny waterfalls stream through her fingers catching in the silver bangle circling her wrist. The fish curve, making for deeper water. Three magpies chatter into the air.

  One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl…

  The child hums, trails her chubby fingers across the surface of the water. On the other side of the lake the mist begins to lift; the glittering, waiting water trembles.

  As they swim out of her grasp, she snatches at the fish. She sees a stone – a piece of blood-red jasper – and reaches for it.

  The sky darkens to the colour of a bruise and an owl shrieks her warning across the water.

  When he came in the house without her, Violet knew. He’d made Lili come with him, and her face told Violet something beyond appalling had occurred. She hadn’t howled or shown any emotion – she became so still it was as though she too had died.

  Sitting on the sofa as dead as you like: for several minutes she neither spoke nor moved. She sat with her hands clenched together until Lili touched her shoulder. And then Violet began to weep. Still, no sound, only tears as big as moonstones.

  They took her baby away in a coffin so small it might have been made for a kitten. Any feelings she may once have had for Teilo slipped through the ice forming around Violet’s heart. She held her breath for days, while the dark of unforgiveness swallowed her.

  ‘There is nothing to say. There are no words.’

  ‘Please.’ His voice sounded as if it came from under the lake.

  ‘Please? Why should I please you, I don’t care about you.’

  Violet didn’t have to pretend not to see the wretched fear on her husband’s face. She didn’t see anything.

  A few weeks later, people swore they had seen Teilo, parked down by the playground, drinking from a bottle. No one remembered speaking to him, there were some occasions when other people’s misery felt like stinging nettles and you kept your distance.

  Teilo drove back and parked outside the cottages, sat in the dark wanting the night to smother him. When it didn’t and his bones weighed heavy and the car filled with the stench of whisky, he opened the window and tried to breathe. Air like dirty wool filled his throat. He recalled a meadow and Violet smiling and a dragonfly landing on her hand.

  His head filled with unsaid words.

  All he heard was the echo of a barn owl.

  When she discovered she was pregnant, Violet thought she would die. She locked herself away and instead of gaining weight, lost a stone. Hanks of her hair fell out. They lay across her pillow like pale vines. She made sure she went to bed as late as possible hoping to sleep through the dawn chorus.

  The months passed. It was as if her insides had dried out, replaced by the cuckoo baby.

  Too fastidious to become an alcoholic, for a while Violet did drink a little more gin than was good for her and called it self-medication.

  The cuckoo baby clung on.

  On the night Cadi was born, the hawthorn blossom fell from the trees; the birds disappeared and didn’t come back for a week.

  Violet cried for the last time. She put away her grief and replaced it with inertia. Her sense of smell deserted her and she refused to have any flowers in the house. She scraped back her hair so tightly it stretched all the expression from her face. Her pretty frocks were bundled into plastic bags and given to a charity shop. Violet replaced them with the kind of bland clothes that made women invisible. And when she put on her long blue knitted coat again, it began to fade.

  She found an anonymous job in a supermarket where hardly anyone recognised her. And when she came home, Violet retreated.

  Twenty-two

  The lanes meandered, one or two passengers got on and off the bus.

  And then Violet was back in the village. WhereI can close my front door and nothing will matter.

  Therelief of leaving behind the pretence, and other people’s curiosity. In the still intervals between work, however briefly, Violet could wrap herself in solitude.

  Gathering her belongings, she made her way along the aisle. She peered to the left and to the right. Although there was no one to be seen, Violet hesitated. She didn’t like how the air closed in on her and when she climbed down from the bus, she scuttled past the church like a shadow.

  He came out of nowhere.

  When Owen stepped in front of her she jumped so hard her heart seemed to hit her throat.

  His tall body barred her way and for a moment, she almost turned and ran. Don’t be an idiot; he isn’t going to do anything.

  The passage of time had caused the particulars of him to fade. Dark hair still curled over his ears; she took in his unblinking brown eyes, the scar on his left cheek. The hairs on her arms stood on end and her own scar began to itch. Of course, that’s what he looks like.

  A little older, more lines on his face making the scar seem deeper. He fell off a barn roof he’d told her – a reckless, youthful accident.

  ‘So,’ he said, moving away from the wall. ‘I’m back.’

  She looked him in the eye now, a faint spasm jerking her mouth. ‘From outer space?’

  ‘Something like that.’ He wasn’t smiling. ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’ There was that edge to his voice again – familiar but odd.

  The idea that he’d been watching her made her nauseous. The air changed, c
harged with energy and something she dreaded: anger, his as well as hers. He stared at her, a look more intense and real than anything she remembered. Violet was frightened. Knowing he was here and seeing him were two entirely different things.

  ‘I thought I was ready to go,’ he said. ‘Seems I was wrong.’

  ‘Why have you come back?’ Violet trembled and touched her hair as if it might reassure her. For a wild moment, she wondered if it looked a mess and if he would notice.

  ‘I just want to talk, Violet.’

  Some trick of the light caused his face to darken and Violet saw his eyes glitter and it terrified her. ‘Why? Why would you want to talk to me? About what?’

  ‘Goddamn it, Violet, why do you have to be so hostile?’

  Her hand flew forward, as if by some other woman’s will, and struck him hard on the side of the face. He flinched and his head jerked sideways. She didn’t know why she had done that. Without waiting to see what damage she’d done, Violet ran.

  Her feet pounding on the tarmac she ran faster than she had in her life. She felt like her feet would leave marks so deep, puddles would form when it rained.

  Twenty-three

  ‘I brought you these.’ Violet placed two punnets of strawberries on Lili’s table.

  ‘Lovely. Thank you.’ Lili noticed the tremor in Violet’s hand. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?’

  No you aren’t, you’re nervous as a cat. ‘I’m making lasagne. Stay for supper if you like. And help yourself to tea, it’s a fresh pot.’

  Violet brushed imaginary hairs from her sleeve. ‘The other day – I wasn’t saying it’s okay to lie. Not telling Cadi though, it isn’t lying. It’s just not telling her.’

  ‘You’re her mother, it’s your call.’ The sin of omission hung in the air. Lili popped a strawberry in her mouth. ‘All I’m saying is, when you muddy the water the truth gets lost.’

  As Violet poured herself a cup of tea, Lili heard the spout of the pot catching against the cup. Violet’s hands were still shaking. She went back to chopping onions. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Who says anything’s wrong?’ Violet frowned. Desperate for a cigarette, she rubbed the scar on her hand. ‘I just wonder sometimes what we’re doing, hanging around in this godforsaken place. It can’t be good for either of us. Look at me.’

  Was Violet threatening to leave after all?

  Violet stared hard at her empty teacup, and back at Lili. ‘Don’t mind me. What do I know? Go ahead, throw your life away. It’s not as if it’s important.’

  For all the good it does, I may as well read soap scraps. Lili sat at the table, the ghost of Violet still hovering. Taking a last mouthful of tea, she stared at the black leaves. Shaking both her head and the cup, she watched the dregs break the spell. Even Morwenna turned her nose up at reading tea-leaves.

  As the day faded she pondered Violet’s words, and the possibility Owen might have returned to the village. The idea agitated her. She knew an unburied ghost could haunt a person. Cadi wasn’t the only one who’d had her fill of secrets. Lili didn’t trust Owen. He’d never been one to leave well alone. And now, she wasn’t sure she trusted Violet either.

  Placing the cup in its saucer she wandered into the garden. When she brushed past the lavender bush, the flowers left their scent on her skirt. One of Cadi’s cardigans lay on the bench. Picking it up, Lili fingered the delicate stitches. Her sister-in-law’s skill struck her as another kind of magic.

  Through the branches of the trees, the light receded to angel cake layers. Lili hugged the cardigan close and as the sun dipped toward the hill, it found a crack in the cloud, and winked broadly before disappearing from view.

  Interpret that, she thought, turning back into the light of her cottage.

  The more you lie the less you remember the truth.

  Violet, lying on her bed, closed her eyes and found herself back in her mother’s house, taking the black frock from the wardrobe, the memory as clear as ice. That night she had finally understood her role in Madeleine’s selfishness.

  Violet had believed herself unloved by her mother and in her misery she fled, into the night and into another reality. She was her mother’s daughter; she had chosen self-interest and existing, nothing more. Whatever Lili might say, life wasn’t about fairytales.

  Teilo had tried to interest Violet in his myths. She loathed them. They were full of lies: incomprehensible and littered with controlling men and beleaguered women.

  Sometimes when she said she loved him and asked Teilo, ‘Do you love me?’ he laughed his lop-sided laugh and replied, of course he did. ‘You are a myth and you are beautiful, how could I not love you?’

  As if being these things mattered.

  The only thing about Violet made from flowers was her name.

  Outside, the evening began to fade and Violet heard moths fluttering in the curtains. She imagined waking in the night, the dreaded rain mocking her. However hot it became in August, Violet made sure to close her bedroom window before night fell.

  Distracted by the moths, she fell asleep.

  She dreamed she watched rain rolling off leaves. She dreamed of a man with eyes the colour of lake water whose kisses caused her to abandon common sense as easily as she might a bus ticket.

  In the middle of the night, when the pattering on the glass roused her, she dragged herself out of bed and closed the window and the curtains against the night rain. She refused to think about love or rain or crying, or the silence that had taken the place of her child’s laughter.

  A ring around the moon means no end of trouble.

  The moon hung as round as a pearl with its edge broken off.

  Violet dreamed of the moon with a halo so bright the image woke her. Eyes wide in the confusing light, she lay, caught between reality and illusion, before turning over and going back to sleep.

  She slept on, deep and unheeding, forgetting that trying to avoid your past is usually pointless. If you weren’t careful, your past would run you down and leave you for dead.

  Twenty-four

  In the middle of the night a storm took hold.

  Trees bent like ballet-dancers and cats flung themselves at doors, howling to be let in. A blanket left out on Miss Bevan’s washing line took flight, and was found a day later caught on a garage roof three doors down.

  Within an hour of daybreak the landscape was transformed. Ribbon clouds fluttered against the sky, rain glistened on rose petals and the wind fell silent. An early sun flickered through the trees like candle flame laying its glamour on Lili’s garden.

  Lili woke with the birds, and a sense of something unnameable. Urging her eyelids closed, she reached for her dream. Too quick for her it shimmered away – a glimpse of women swimming in the lake. She turned her head into the pillow, smelling rain and jasmine.

  The cat shifted in the small of her back, stretched and jumped down from the bed, muttering about breakfast.

  ‘First things first, is it, Furry?’

  A witch woman’s cat isn’t necessarily black. Lili’s cat had slate-grey fur, a loving nature and an ambivalent conscience. To throw the neighbours off, Lili called him Mr Furry. He named himself Genghis Pywacket and some of the neighbours weren’t fooled. Mrs Guto-Evans knew exactly where the heads of dead voles left on her doorstep came from.

  Mr Furry’s eyes changed colour with his mood: green for envy, yellow for cupboard love and dark as soot when thwarted.

  ‘You love me best, you know you do.’ Lili pulled on her dressing gown and went downstairs. Mr Furry followed, purring.

  By the time Cadi showed up, the kitchen smelled yeasty and familiar.

  Lili smiled hello. She carried on kneading, puffs of flour rising in dusty clouds. As she shaped each loaf into its tin she covered it with a damp cloth setting it to prove. Rising dough, Lili insisted, was a proper spell – a spell of transformation.

  Lili’s magic seemed to Cadi a confusing thing. One minute she made light of it, sayin
g it was as natural as breathing. The next she hinted at unpredictability and havoc.

  Whenever Cadi suggested a spell to make Violet talk could do no harm, Lili would give her a look fit to curdle cream.

  ‘There’s a full moon tonight. Shall we go out?’

  This was the opposite of what Cadi was expecting. ‘Okay. Can we do something for Cerys? You won’t believe how scared she was.’ She recalled the shot of energy on the back of her neck.

  Mr Furry, fed to bursting, jumped onto the velvet chair, nudging his way between Cadi and the cushioned arm.

  ‘Dim problem, cariad. And maybe something for your mam? It’s not the happiest time for her, is it?’ She planted a kiss in the tangle of Cadi’s morning hair.

  Cadi shrugged.

  ‘What’s Violet up to this morning?’

  Cadi stroked Mr Furry’s head, smoothing her hands across his closed eyes the way he liked.

  ‘Going to work, she said.’

  ‘On a Saturday?’

  ‘She said someone called in sick.’

  ‘Right.’

  Violet never worked at the weekend. She saved her Saturdays and Sundays, she said, for Cadi.

  Lili cleared the table, scraped the board and wiped up the flour. ‘I have some work to see to. Will you be okay pottering?’ She took Cadi’s face in her hand. ‘Look at me. Let me see those cuts.’

  Cadi pulled away. ‘They’re fine. I just want to read my book.’

  ‘Alright, Miss Touchy. I was only checking.’

  ‘Well, don’t.’

  Lili began washing up. ‘I promised Sylvia I’d have her pictures in the post today. I’ll be half an hour tops then I’m all yours. Can you amuse yourself for that long?’

  ‘You sound like Mam.’ Cadi opened her book.

  ‘If I were your mother I’d be telling you to do something about the bird’s nest on your head. You look like you lost your hairbrush and found a rake.’