Ghostbird Read online

Page 9


  Cadi explained she hadn’t lost the baby. ‘It’s my mother.’

  ‘You better stay here, lovely, while we check.’

  Certain she had been clever, maybe finding the lost baby, convinced of her mother’s joy, the reality – when Violet hit her – came as a shock. Although she didn’t understand what she’d done, something in her mother’s face as she walked away, leaving Lili to cope, frightened Cadi enough to overwhelm her outrage.

  ‘It’s not your fault, cariad,’ Lili had said, hugging her close. ‘It isn’t your mother’s fault either.’

  Her face smarting, Cadi wept and wanted to know whose fault it was.

  ‘Nobody’s, my darling, it’s nobody’s fault. It’s just that some things can’t ever be found.’

  ‘What happened to the baby?’ Through her tears, Cadi imagined a tiny child, wandering between towering sandcastles, losing her way amongst the sunbathers and sad-faced donkeys.

  ‘Never mind that,’ Lili said. ‘What happened to you? My goodness, you gave us a fright. Now then, cariad, let’s find your mam and get some ice-cream.’

  Cadi knew – even at the age of six – that trying to get Lili or Violet to tell her about the baby would be as likely as persuading the donkeys to cheer up.

  ‘I remember being scared,’ Cadi said. ‘And you saying I’d frightened the living daylights out of you. I was confused, because I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong.’

  ‘You didn’t do anything wrong. You were a little girl and I guess I danced around the detail because I was terrified we’d lost you.’ Even then, the promise had weighed heavy. It would have been so much easier to have told Cadi the truth then. ‘And I was so relieved when we found you.’

  ‘You said the last time you’d been that scared, it was on a roller-coaster with Sylvia.’

  ‘Did I? Goodness, I don’t remember that.’

  ‘Do you remember the doll?’

  A few years later, searching under her bed for a lost marble, Cadi had come across a small rag doll. Faded and limp, it lay lodged in a gap between the headboard and the wall with only a leg hanging down. A heavy old thing, the bed hadn’t been moved for such a long time it seemed to grow out of the wooden floor. Cadi tugged on a cloth foot and pulled out the dusty doll.

  Her mother’s reaction had been so odd; Cadi once again feared she must have done something wrong. Violet had snatched the doll away with such force, it made Cadi flinch.

  ‘No,’ Violet had said and it was half a question. ‘No, that’s not right? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Mam, what’s the matter?’ Cadi’s heart thudded so hard she thought Violet must be able to hear it. ‘Is it Dora’s?’

  Violet stared at the doll, her eyes wide and bewildered. She uttered a small cry and turned on her heel, the doll clutched in her hand, leaving the room, leaving Cadi.

  Confused and upset all over again, later in the day Cadi found Lili, insisted she talk to Violet. ‘Make her tell me, Lili, about the doll.’

  Lili sat Cadi down and held her face between her hands. ‘You really mustn’t, cariad. It’s the past; let it stay where it is.’

  Violet threw the doll into the dustbin. Cadi retrieved it, horrified, sponged off the dirt and hid it under her mattress. Stubborn and determined, she pestered Lili until her aunt admitted: Teilo had given the doll to Dora.

  Why would Violet hate a doll because Teilo bought it? Before she fell asleep each night, Cadi’s hand had slipped under the mattress to touch the soft fabric, and it felt like a lucky charm. She decided to try and feel sorry for her mother, and do as Lili suggested. It didn’t mean she had forgotten.

  The doll lay hidden under the mattress. As she grew older, from time to time, Cadi pulled it out, stared into its bland, embroidered face, stroked the brown woollen hair and faded blue frock, wondered if the lingering dusty scent might be her lost sister.

  ‘I do remember,’ Lili said. ‘You went on about it until I told you where it came from.’

  ‘I’ve still got her.’

  Lili made a face somewhere between understanding and discomfort.

  ‘You told me to forget about it.’

  ‘I knew you wouldn’t. I’m sorry, what can I say?’

  ‘You can’t expect me to care if this makes you feel guilty, Lili, or if me asking questions messes with your stupid loyalty.’

  ‘That’s not fair.’ There was a great deal more Lili could say. She swallowed forcing her words into a huddle in her throat, daring them to escape. ‘You have no idea how many conversations I’ve had with your mother about chickens coming home to roost.’

  ‘Hasn’t made any difference though, has it?’

  ‘What do you want from me, Cadi?’

  ‘You know what I want.’

  When Lili didn’t answer her, Cadi said, ‘I want time to go backwards, at least until I get to the part that matters.’

  ‘The past can’t be undone. We have to keep going.’

  The day was already drifting toward afternoon as if it wanted to prove Lili’s point.

  ‘You don’t believe that any more than I do.’

  Nineteen

  Although she had warned Owen to expect it, the phone call from his mother’s solicitor still took him by surprise.

  A month ago, Owen Penry had been living in a caravan on the borders, content with his life as a jobbing carpenter.

  ‘Your mother has made her wishes clear,’ an indifferent voice said. ‘If you’re not interested in the house, she wants it sold. In its present condition though, even with the land the place is unlikely to realise a decent price.’

  Owen Penry had never wanted to be a farmer.

  His father had been an unforgiving, drunken bully and saw his son leaving the family farm as a dereliction of duty. They never spoke again and even after he died, Owen refused his mother’s requests to come home. Acre by acre the land was sold, until all that remained were a couple of fields and the house. No longer able to manage, Ffion returned to north Wales to live with her sister, leaving the house in trust for Owen.

  A house I don’t want and can see no reason to love. Owen walked through the village catching up with his memories.

  He spotted a pottery and crossed the road to avoid it. Years ago the building had still been a chapel and Owen had inherited his mother’s superstitious nature. The chapel might have been deconsecrated – that didn’t mean its ghosts weren’t still there, mad as hell and restless.

  ‘Don’t be soft, Owen,’ Teilo’s witchy sister had told him, down by the lake, hanging out when they were teenagers. ‘Nothing can have power over you unless you let it.’

  Owen knew better. A disturbed spirit could unravel your mind. He stared at the building, wondering about the kind of people who thought a defunct chapel in a stranded village a suitable place to set up a pottery.

  English hippies he supposed, with fancy ideas about living next to nature and more money than sense. Living cheek by jowl with nature wasn’t all it was cracked up to be – he was a farmer’s son and knew what he knew. And he would rather cut off his own thumbs than set foot in a chapel full of disgruntled ghosts.

  The village had hardly changed – sleepier if anything – and in spite of the heat, Owen shivered. He noticed the old police station had gone. The building had been transformed into someone’s home. Instead of the glass-fronted noticeboard and covered utility light over the door, in their place were hanging baskets filled with bright petunias. A child’s bike lay on its side.

  Owen Penry wasn’t fooled. The ghosts of policemen had long memories and he could sense them too. The last time he’d been inside the place, he’d been attempting to convince the village’s long-suffering policeman he knew nothing about cigarettes missing from the shop.

  ‘You’ve got two packs stuffed up your jacket, good boy,’ Griff Davies had said.

  Less than ten minutes later, suitably shamed, Owen agreed to relinquish a life of crime and make his mother proud of him. He didn’t give a damn about making hi
s father proud. He was a drunkard and a bully who Owen swore had never loved a soul in his life.

  He tried not to think about love or trust. He thought about a girl made of mist. His father used to tell him that women were devious and you couldn’t trust any of them. Was that true? Maybe I should get drunk. Fold myself into a corner of the pub and get self-indulgently smashed.

  The fact that his father had been a drunk didn’t faze Owen. He wasn’t his father and knew the difference between drowning your sorrows and using one drink too many as an excuse to beat your wife.

  The village was so quiet, Owen could hear his heart. He sensed he was being watched. That hadn’t changed and neither had the rain in August

  Even though it rankled that Violet had put the phone down on him, a part of him was relieved. He still wasn’t sure why he’d called her in the first place. If he really wanted to see her, he could go to the cottage. But that might mean bumping into Lili and he wasn’t ready to take her on.

  He told himself not to be such a coward.

  A couple of magpies harried three watchful crows sitting on the church roof.

  ‘Birds have their own language.’ He remembered Teilo’s sister telling him this too. ‘If you pay attention, you can learn it.’ She told him if he saw a crow in a crowd, it was a rook, and when they feel threatened they gathered in threes.

  He looked up. Don’t mind me, I’m just passing through.

  The crows stared back.

  He wanted to be grateful for his life, to feel responsible for his mother. Even though he loved her, what she wanted from him seemed like a burden.

  The magpies made a final screeching sortie before disappearing, leaving the crows in sole possession of the roof.

  Tomorrow I’ll call the solicitor, and the estate agent. He would get the house on the market; settle for a rock-bottom price if he had to.

  So long as there was enough money for his mother, Owen would do his duty. And then he could finally sever his links with the village and never return.

  The village kept a close eye on shadows, and their backdoor keys. It prided itself on the quality of its secrets – secrets too sad to be careless with.

  The Hopkins tragedy inhabited a respectful silence. Certain things were too terrible to name and although they mistrusted Violet, the village liked Cadi. Feeling sorry for her, born on the back of heartache, most people were tight-lipped about her father, something Violet and Lili could only be grateful for.

  That said, who knew whether or not Lilwen Hopkins, daughter of a witch woman, hadn’t bound their mouths with threads of silence? Every once in a while, faltering on the edge of telling, might they have found themselves instead insisting rain was on its way and Cadi should run along home?

  But if the village chose, it had its own powers and other people’s business was meat and drink to them. The years hadn’t diminished the game. It hadn’t escaped the notice of Mrs Guto-Evans that Owen Penry was still around.

  ‘What do you suppose he’s up to then?’ she asked Miss Bevan.

  ‘I wouldn’t like to guess, bach.’

  ‘Where’s he staying?’

  ‘Well, not by the farm, not with his mam gone to her sister and the place all closed up.’ Miss Bevan’s smile was smug with knowledge. ‘He’s at the bed and breakfast over the shop. I saw him come out and go in for a paper.’ Her lips pursed. ‘I never did trust a single man of a certain age.’

  Miffed at being on the receiving end of second-hand news, Mrs Guto-Evans changed the trajectory of the conversation.

  ‘It was a grand farm in his grandfather’s day,’ she said. ‘Before the drink.’

  ‘Trouble, the lot of them.’

  ‘Not the mother, fair play.’

  ‘Although a few clips round that boy’s ear wouldn’t have gone amiss. Like father like son.’

  Miss Bevan agreed, and they speculated on the reason for the return of a bad boy.

  Twenty

  In the night the rainmaker leaves the ghost a dream of her sister.

  She is cold. Her wings are thin and furled and she feels the chill on her skin. Looking for warmth and sensing her sister, the ghost moves toward her.

  The dream floats like a blown kiss and somewhere in between the tree and the house it quivers and vanishes into the darkness.

  The ghost is confused. She knows there is something she is supposed to do, something she cannot do until her wings have completely grown.

  In the middle of a wild night, she is certain only of this: someone needs to be forgiven, someone needs to forgive.

  Cadi couldn’t tell if what she heard was a whisper or the wind. She woke with a tightness in her chest, as if she had been crying in her sleep. Scanning the dark room, she breathed in the emptiness. Her bed felt warm, the rocking horse stood unmoving in the corner.

  Where are you?

  All at once the quiet seemed unreliable. Cadi reached under her pillow for the rag doll and clutched it, willing her heart to calm down.

  I’m here.

  The sound seemed lonely, Cadi felt tears threatening. This is ridiculous. I can’t keep crying every five minutes. I don’t do crying.

  She turned toward the window and it was as if her mother sat on the floor, smoking a cigarette. Wisps of mist blurred the space below the sill.

  It drifted higher, moving up to form the shadowy figure of a small girl. Even though she knew she was lying on her bed, Cadi felt as if she were falling. She sat up and swung her legs over the side. She was close enough to touch the child. She could see feathers and leaves floating in the strange mist.

  Her stomach lurched and nausea swept through her. A gust of wind snaked around her feet. Outside it began to rain and she could see it glistening on the windowsill, gleaming wet in the little girl’s hair.

  Peidiwch â dweud…

  It was little more than a whisper and once again, Cadi struggled to understand the words.

  Out on the landing she heard a step. The leaves and feathers swirled and the figure disappeared, leaving nothing more than a shred of vapour in its wake.

  Her mother came into the room.

  ‘Cadi?’ Violet crossed to the window, closed it and drew the curtain with a sharp swish. ‘It’s freezing cold. What were you thinking?’

  Cadi wasn’t sure she could speak. She swallowed, trying to get rid of the sick feeling, stuffed the doll under the pillow and got back into bed.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she murmured. ‘I forgot to close the window. It’s only wind, Mam.’ The explanation sounded tame and she waited for Violet to protest and ask more questions.

  Her mother nodded and patted Cadi’s arm. ‘You and your fresh air, I swear you and Lili will blow away one night. Sleep tight then.’

  Violet left the room and Cadi sighed with relief. Pulling the rag doll from under her pillow she hugged it close. Maybe I ought to have told her.

  The idea was laughable. Violet wouldn’t believe her, or she would be scared stiff. Violet was afraid of her own shadow.

  Lili might understand. But the words the ghost of her sister had whispered ran through her head. And now she remembered what they meant.

  Peidiwch â dweud… Don’t tell…

  On the other side of the wall, Lili lay in her bed trying not to think about Violet. In turquoise ink in the margin of her journal she drew a fractured heart.

  Whose initials should I write? Not her own, for sure.

  ‘Love is too much like suffering, lovely boy,’ she said to the cat. She stroked his sleek back. ‘It makes you cross and stops you eating. Even if you think you might want it, who needs it? I have Cadi. I don’t need to mope in corners getting thin.’

  If a small voice called her a quitter, she would close her ears. She hadn’t quit on Cadi.

  Cadi had changed Lili’s life beyond imagining. When Teilo died and Cadi was born, in the face of Violet’s mute withdrawal, Lili found herself needed. Overnight, her days were taken up with a domesticity she had never envisaged.

  ‘Who w
ould have thought it?’ she said. Mr Furry blinked and folded into sleep.

  Rather than writing down her days, Lili often sketched them. As she doodled round the heart, she thought about Teilo. Her childhood and her teenage years with her handsome, feckless brother were kaleidoscopic memories of joy and grief: of herself growing up wild and shy while Teilo grew up wild and bold. He learned to prefer the company of men: the pub and the rugby. Moving on from her; leaving her to her writing.

  ‘Ah, Teilo, bach, I miss you.’

  Outside the rain began, as gentle as a song her mother might have sung. She wanted to be angry with him. Her heart was healing, Violet’s, it seemed, never would. Lili had found a way to carry on – writing her stories, breathing, planting bulbs, pulling weeds. Violet, grieving and pregnant with her dead husband’s child, became a hostage to loss.

  Lili drew a sword and pierced the heart, stabbed the paper with the sharp pencil point. Lovers came and went, they broke your heart and only ghosts remained. She knew that when somebody told you they would love you forever, it wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

  My heart’s too valuable to give away to the first person who asks. Lili’s heart seemed so precious she thought she might wrap it in a silk cloth and charge people to look at it.

  From time to time, Lilwen Hopkins dreamt old dreams full of laughing women; sweet dreams causing her heart to flutter, making her blush in her sleep.

  Twenty-one

  Rain slid down the window in thin pleats.

  The bus rumbled along the lanes. Violet leaned her head against the glass staring at nothing. I am as thin as this rain.

  A tumble of turquoise green yarn lay in her lap. She closed her eyes and saw an image of Dora the way she had looked when she first learned to walk – later than most children – swaying from side to side like a tiny drunk, grinning with delight.

  Look at me, Mam! I’m walking!

  While Dora was alive, as if she’d known their time was limited, Violet’s desire to be with her daughter had been almost obsessive. Each time Dora placed her hand in Teilo’s, Violet’s fear would overwhelm her. The two of them would set off, happy as the day was long. Violet waited at the window for them to return, and when they did she hugged her child to her, the most precious thing she knew.