The Influence (27 page)

Could it have been the last trace of a dream? She’d waited breathlessly to hear it again, until she’d realised that she felt as if Rowan were still calling her from beyond the door. Carefully, so as not to waken Derek, Alison had slipped out of bed and tiptoed to Rowan’s room.

When she’d eased the door open she had been ready to sit with Rowan, to talk her back to sleep. Just then there had been nothing she would rather do, for she’d realised what she had missed most since the child had come back: feeling as if Rowan needed her, even a little. But there was Rowan, lying quite still and untroubled, and at first Alison hadn’t understood why the sight had made her quail. Then she had realised what she was seeing, and she’d dug her knuckles into her mouth. Rowan had been lying in precisely the position she’d assumed when Alison had tucked her up in bed, hours earlier.

That wasn’t like any child asleep, let alone like Rowan. She had been lying like a corpse—like Queenie’s corpse. Alison had hung onto the doorframe for support, gripping it until she’d thought she felt it shift. The notion that the child in the bed wasn’t Rowan, whatever she looked like, had seemed to illuminate the last few months with a clarity that made Alison’s mind feel seared. She’d pushed herself away from the doorway at last and had crept into bed as if she could hide from her thoughts, telling herself that it was just the night that was telling her storeys, that she couldn’t think such things in daylight. But she had, and she’d been watching Rowan all day, waiting for proof.

She wanted to be proved wrong, she told herself. She wanted someone to catch her watching and ask why, and tell her how absurd she was being when she owned up. They’d tell her she was worse than Hermione for wondering why Rowan no longer let anyone see her naked: didn’t she want the child to grow up? If Rowan seemed increasingly like Queenie, that must mean she’d needed her hereditary wilfulness to help her cope with that night in Wales. Good riddance to Vicky who Hermione had thought was Queenie, and what did it matter where she’d gone? What was Alison trying to suggest that she didn’t dare put into words? Out here in the sunlight, where the shadows of the nursing homes pointed at her, Alison felt exposed to herself. That was Rowan ahead of her, and any other notion was grotesque; where else did she think the child could be—in the empty sky, on the stained dunes, in the shallow waves that plucked at the beach? Thinking that made her feel disloyal, cruel, more confused than ever.

When her mother grasped her arm more firmly Alison grew tense, waiting for her to demand what was wrong. But her mother said “Step out a bit and let’s catch them up. We’ll have them thinking we’re past it.”

Rowan and the men were nearly at the houses that marked the end of the promenade, where they would have either to turn back or continue along the beach. Suddenly Alison thought how she could prove herself wrong, and she was about to tell Edith when, for no apparent reason, Rowan and the men stopped short of the houses.

The day seemed to freeze around Alison as if it had become a photograph, pitilessly bright and unchallengeable. She was certain she’d seen Rowan halt the men. Rowan had stiffened as if she knew without looking back that Alison was about to speak—as if she knew what Alison would say. Alison swallowed dryly and stammered “Actually, I’m getting a headache. You catch them up and I’ll go back.”

She spoke so that only Edith could hear, and stared at Rowan’s back. Her heart shuddered then, for Rowan turned at once, her face blank, and tugged at Keith’s hand. “What’s the problem?” he called.

“Alison’s off home to nurse her head. I’ll walk along with you if you give me the chance.”

“We’ll all go back,” Derek said, and Alison was sure that Rowan was tugging his hand. “You shouldn’t have let us tire you out, Edith. We aren’t all as young as our Rowan.”

Rowan’s face stayed blank. Alison thought of a mask behind which a puppeteer was hiding while she worked the men. That seemed crazier than ever, but surely that meant she needed to be away from Rowan, to sort out her thoughts if she could. “My mother isn’t tired, she wants to carry on, don’t you?” Alison pleaded. “I won’t be able to relax if I think I’ve spoiled your walk. At least you take Rowan a bit further, Derek. She needs the exercise after being inside for so long.”

“We’ll go on at least a little further,” Edith said. “You deserve a rest before you go back to work.”

Alison hugged her and let go immediately, in case Edith sensed that something was wrong. As she swung toward the house, her head began to ache. She took a dozen steps and glanced over her shoulder. The others were strolling down to the beach. Just as she glanced at them, Rowan looked back at her. Her face was too distant to be read, but Alison felt discovered, shamefaced, more paranoid than ever. She urged herself home, almost running.

The promenade was deserted. A breeze slashed across the dunes and seemed to sprinkle her legs with sand and ice. Ripples like cracks spread across the fringe of the sea. There was no other movement near her, and she felt alone and deluded, robbed of her child by her own doubts. The glare of sea and sand and concrete pierced her eyes, but she mustn’t just lie down when she reached the house: she might be able to show herself the truth.

She slid her key into the lock and drew a breath that made her head swim. She turned the key, which numbed her fingers, and pushed the front door inwards. She stepped across the threshold and halted, gripping the edge of the door.

The house wasn’t empty. Rowan was there, washing dishes in the kitchen or tidying her room, writing notes for her parents to find, reading so quietly that you mightn’t know where she was until you heard her laugh. If all this was just a memory, it felt like a presence Alison had failed to be aware of. It felt as though Rowan had been with her all the way along the promenade, hoping to be noticed when they were alone. Closing the door behind her, Alison paced along the hall.

The sight of the deserted rooms didn’t make her feel closer to Rowan, nor did the smell of stale books that lingered in the house—but she had something that would. She ran upstairs to her bedroom and rummaged in her handbag for the note.
Dear mummy and daddy, I love you and I realy dont mind if you dont buy me things becose you cant aford them…
 
It was her last link with Rowan as she used to be. She blinked fiercely as her vision blurred. The note should help her see the truth.

She was at Rowan’s door when she had the panicky notion that Rowan was already home and waiting for her, the new contemptuous, watchful Rowan. She flung the door open and stalked in, appalled to feel she was venturing into a lair. She hurried to the window and pushed up the staggery sash, in the hope that she would hear when the family was close, and then she began to search.

She found the diary almost at the bottom of a pile of books. All the spines were turned to the wall. It seemed a cunning way to hide the diary without appearing to do so, she thought, and heard her paranoia like a shrill whisper in her head. Much as she’d wanted to read what Rowan might have written about her last night in Wales, she had never asked; she would never have considered reading the diary without asking—but if it could prove her wrong, surely she mustn’t hesitate.

She sat on the bed and laid Rowan’s note on her lap, and found that she was afraid to open the diary. Her throat felt parched by a smell of stale paper, her hands were cramped with dread. She made herself a vow: the diary would show her the truth, and she would act on whatever she found; if it proved her wrong she would seek treatment while her parents were here. She turned the diary over and let the blank pages scrape past her thumb until writing appeared. She forced herself not to close her eyes, to see what was there, the truth.

It was the entry for Christmas Day.
Today I got three books by Dickens and a new dress. Then we had Christmas lunch and pulled crackers. Later on we played a bored game and I won, and then it was time for me to go to bed.

Alison blinked rapidly, and hardly knew what she was feeling. The tone of the diary was so cold that it didn’t even mention who had bought the presents, and yet there before her eyes was all the evidence she could ask for. The paragraph in the diary and Rowan’s note were in exactly the same handwriting.

So that was that: the truth. The child who’d written the last entry was the only Rowan now, and that was what Alison hadn’t been able to cope with, perhaps because she blamed herself for losing the child she had brought up and loved. Rowan was growing up, away from her, and Alison could hardly blame her. As for herself, perhaps the treatment wouldn’t be too drastic, since she was facing the truth. She closed the window, shivering at a breeze that felt as if it had frozen hope. Thank heaven she had noted where the diary came from—the child must already feel spied on. Alison gave the diary and the note beside it a last look, as if that might help her relinquish the past and accept Rowan as she was now.

Then she jerked as if someone unseen had caught hold of her. The sensation vanished before she could be sure she had felt it, faded like a snowflake, except that its touch had been warm. It might have been the shock of realisation she experienced as she stared at the pages on the bed. She let out a moan of hope or despair. It wasn’t over. She had almost missed seeing what the pages showed.

She sat down so heavily that the bed creaked, and leafed through the diary, her fingers shaking. She found the last entry Rowan had written in Wales, about a photograph of Vicky that Hermione had shown her. Most of the subsequent dates had entries: how she was glad to be home, how most of the books in the school library weren’t worth her attention, how Miss Frith pretended to know more than she really did… The only emotion they expressed was impatience, and impatience had betrayed the writer. In the earliest entries the spelling was as erratic as always, but by yesterday Rowan was able to spell Christmas and crackers and sometimes. It wasn’t possible. Rowan might enjoy reading Dickens, but Alison should have realised that she couldn’t spell his name.

Alison clenched her fists to make her fingers work, and leafed through the diary again. The spelling improved as the entries came up to date. The progress might have been convincing if it hadn’t been so rapid, but now even the token misspelling of board game looked insultingly obvious, if indeed it was a misspelling at all. The writer had grown tired of the pretence, or perhaps she couldn’t bear to seem to spell as inaccurately as Rowan had.

Alison folded the note and closed it inside the diary. She put the diary in her handbag, which she hung over her arm. For the moment she felt nothing but a mounting sureness that made Rowan seem closer, the Rowan whom she’d borne and loved, however imperfectly, and whom she wanted to come back to her. She’d vowed to see the truth and act on it, and deep in her heart she knew there was only one explanation for the changes in the diary and in Rowan. But if she believed that, she had reason to be as nervous as she was growing. She was wondering why, when the child out there had seemed to know what Alison was planning, she hadn’t tried harder to prevent her from coming back to the house.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Derek thought Alison was about to speak when Edith came into the living-room and said “Rowan wants you, Derek.”

Alison bent her head to Edith’s magazine and retreated into silence. “What were you going to say, Ali?” he said.

“It’ll wait. You go up and find out what she wants.”

She sounded too bright, like a radio with the treble turned right up, and he didn’t like it at all. First he should see about Rowan. She was lying in bed, hands folded on the blankets, head raised slightly by the pillow. As he stepped into the bedroom her eyes turned to him, and he had a disconcerting notion that he should have knocked before entering. “What’s up, babe?” he said.

She seemed to find that overly familiar. Even when he’d found her in the graveyard she had been aloof, reluctant to let him hug her, and since then he hadn’t often tried. She raised her clasped hands as if she were praying and leaned toward him with an intimacy he no longer expected. “Will grandmama be staying in?”

“She will, and your mother. You know we’d never leave you alone in the house.”

“I know mother will be. But grandmama will too.”

“That’s what I said. Why are you asking?”

She gazed at him as if he ought to know. Worse, he thought he did. “You go to sleep now, all right? Everyone loves you,” he said awkwardly, and stooped to kiss her forehead. It was cold, and wrinkled as his lips touched it. When he looked back from the doorway, her eyes were closed. He hurried downstairs, full of a protective rage and praying that he needn’t feel that way.

“What did she want?” Alison said, too casually.

“Just making sure we weren’t all going out, as if we would. What did you want before?”

“Only to remind you not to get my father too drunk. Remember they have to drive home the day after tomorrow.”

Derek sensed that she was concealing at least as much as he was. It seemed a denial of everything they’d shared and built together since before they were married. He could feel his dismay swelling into words, forcing his lips open, and then Keith said “Come on, let the poor man show me his local. I haven’t had a proper talk with him all Christmas.”

She wanted Derek to be closer to her family, after all. He wanted it himself, though not under these circumstances. He followed Keith into the night, where a wind swooped down like a sluicing of ice from the roofs. Pinched edges of foam rose jerkily on the dark bay, ships flared like heaps of coal as they pitched through the waves. In the pub Keith’s glasses clouded over. Derek bought the beer while Keith wiped the lenses and muttered “I hope you aren’t going to be difficult, you two” and a tape sang “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” through speakers draped with streamers in all the alcoves of the bar. Keith sat behind the fruit machine and clinked tankards with Derek. “Well, that’s another year nearly over and the world’s still in one piece.”