The Moment She Left (30 page)

Getting up from her computer where the name Yoder was displayed large on the screen, she went to pour herself a glass of wine and started at the sound of the
doorbell. She wasn’t expecting anyone – unless it was Gina, arrived in Kesterly at last. Had she given her this address?

‘Hi, it’s me,’ a voice at the other end of the entryphone told her.

Andee’s eyes closed as she released the door, then remembering what was on her computer she returned to the sitting room to shut down the screen.

It was early on Tuesday morning. A damp, silvery mist was rolling across the countryside turning it into a kind of Elysian paradise, Rowzee thought, as she and Teddy started out on their walk. It was hard to see much beyond twenty yards ahead, and as though sensing the need to stay close Teddy was holding on to his ball instead of urging her to throw it. However, the spotting of a deer as they crossed into the estate soon sent him hurtling off into the bushes.

Knowing he’d give up the chase soon enough Rowzee kept going, enjoying the way sunlight was sparkling through the haze, making it seem as though the cobwebby grass was littered with diamonds. The air was still, yet invigorating, the birds were chirping merrily. She could hear a woodpecker somewhere close by, but was unable to spot it through the mist. On mornings like this she and Victor had always enjoyed getting up early for a stroll, and on a level she was finding easier to connect with now that her own life was soon to end, she could feel him with her today.

In her mind she was speaking to him, asking him to help her find the courage to tell Pamela and Graeme
her news. She could hear him assuring her that Graeme would be supportive in every way; Pamela would be too, he was saying, but she’d be angry that Rowzee hadn’t told her sooner, and frustrated with Mr Mervin that there was nothing he could do to cure the cancer.

‘I don’t want Pamela to be rude to Mr Mervin,’ Rowzee said out loud.

Victor’s reply came instantly into her mind. ‘She won’t be,’ he said silently. ‘Remember she’s a new person, thanks to her therapy.’

Feeling disloyal, but saying it anyway, Rowzee couldn’t help pointing out that it hadn’t completely worked. ‘Not that I want it to,’ she went on hastily, ‘because I love her the way she is. We don’t want her turning into a sweet-natured, uncomplaining old soul who sees nothing but good in everything. It wouldn’t be her.’

‘Don’t worry, it won’t happen. Leopards don’t change their spots.’

Victor was right, it wouldn’t happen and Bill would be glad of it, because he was clearly besotted with the feisty old bat he’d finally managed to hook. Or so it seemed. ‘The main difficulty,’ she told Victor, ‘is not Pamela changing into somebody else, it’s not knowing how much longer before I stop being me.’

‘You’ll always be you, Rowzee.’

‘I knew you’d say something like that, but you have to take this seriously, my love. I want to do the right thing for everyone before I go, including Norma, Sean and Jason. They’re your flesh and blood, well Sean and Jason are, and that means a great deal to me. I hope you’ve
forgiven Sean for what he did to you. It was terrible, I know, and he shouldn’t have got away with it, but we know now that he didn’t.’

‘Do you think what happened to him was a punishment for what he did to me?’

‘Yes, I think I do, and that’s what makes it so sad, because I know you’d never wish anything so awful on him. I wish I could ask him if he’d like to come with me when I go to Dignitas so we could come to you together.’

‘So you’re still intending to do that?’

Sighing, she said, ‘I’m not sure. Since talking to Mr Mervin yesterday I haven’t been able to make up my mind about anything.’

‘You know, you have a lot more to give to the world before you come to me.’

Welling up, Rowzee said, ‘Do you think so?’ She was so torn, longing desperately to be with Victor and Edward, yet wanting to stay where she was for as long as she could with Graeme and Pamela and now Jason, her dear, sweet grandson.

‘I know so, and you do too. You can make yourself a cause célèbre.’

Wryly she replied, ‘With Pamela as my spokesman when I can’t speak for myself any more?’

‘That could be interesting, because if anyone knows how to fight a corner she does. But I was thinking more of Sean and what someone in your position could do for people in his.’

Taking this in, Rowzee looked around for Teddy and spotted him sniffing about a marshy patch in the grass
a short way ahead. ‘Tell me, Victor,’ she whispered, filling up with emotion, ‘will you be waiting for me when I get there?’

‘You know I will.’

‘And Edward?’

‘He’s here too.’

‘Can he hear me now?’

‘If you want him to.’

‘Eddie, my darling, Mummy’s coming to you soon and we’ll all be together again. Won’t that be lovely?’ To Victor she said brokenly, ‘Is he still five years old?’

‘Not in the way you understand it.’

She walked on, certain they were still there, watching her, caring for her and wanting to help her in any way they could. In the end, in a tiny voice she said, ‘I’m afraid, Victor.’

‘I know, my love, but there’s nothing to be afraid of. Everyone will take good care of you, and if things get really bad they’ll find a way to let you go.’

She couldn’t be sure of that, but it was what she wanted to believe so she decided she would.

‘I think I feel ready to come now, Victor.’

‘You mustn’t say that. It’s like giving up.’

‘But what difference will six months make? I think it might be even less if I don’t have radiotherapy.’ Mr Mervin hadn’t said so, but she was sure he’d implied it.

‘You’ll never know unless you stay around to find out, and who knows, you might do something amazing in that time that will make a huge difference to everyone.’

‘Like what?’

‘Mm, let me see, I’m thinking solving the theorem of quantum gravity.’

Rowzee had to laugh. Such a typical Victor answer. ‘I hate forgetting things,’ she told him. ‘It makes me feel like one of those cheeses with holes in it. Lots of substance and then suddenly nothing but air.’

‘What are you trying to remember?’

‘I only wish I knew.’

Victor laughed, and so did she.

She missed him so much and wanted desperately to be with him, but now the possibility was drawing close she wasn’t sure how well her faith was holding up. She could hear him in her mind, feel him right next to her as she walked across the fields, but she knew very well that it was all imaginary. If it really were possible to speak to the dead they’d know everything they needed to about the afterlife, and probably lots more about this one too. Such as whether it was necessary to be afraid of dying, and what the point was of everything. Was there some divine purpose behind what had happened to Sean; to taking small children from their parents the way Edward had been taken from them, or making others, like Jessica, simply disappear? If it were possible to understand these things they might be easier to accept, but sadly it didn’t work that way, and she could feel a Pamela-like frustration coming over her for how randomly cruel and nonsensical life could be.

Using the thrower to scoop up Teddy’s ball she hurled it as far as she could into the next field, and
tramped along after him, climbing the stile and wading on through the long grass, wellies soaked in dew and plastered with buttercup petals. In the distance she could just make out the woods, a kind of C.S. Lewis dreamland in the rising mist.

She’d tried calling Andee last night, after Pamela and Bill had gone out. They’d invited her to go along too, but she’d had too much to think about to be able to carry off the pretence of enjoying herself. She’d felt disappointed when she’d been directed to Andee’s voicemail, but Andee would have lots of things to do, people to see, and Rowzee felt foolish now for thinking she might have wanted to come and spend the evening with her. So she’d rung Norma instead and they’d had a lovely long chat about Jason and how clever he was underneath it all, and how much they both enjoyed rereading Jane Austen’s
Northanger Abbey
and watching
Strictly Come Dancing
. They’d talked about Norma’s brief relationship with Victor, how the two of them had met and how they’d never really been suited. Apparently Norma had been a different sort of person back then, so it seemed that sometimes a leopard could change its spots.

By the time they’d rung off Norma had recommended some books for Rowzee to read, mostly spiritual guides as though she’d sensed Rowzee might need them, and as soon as she’d put the phone down Rowzee had gone online to order them. No point hanging around, or she might not get to finish them.

How awful the timing had been for Sean’s accident that hadn’t been an accident at all. If Victor hadn’t died
so soon afterwards Norma would have got in touch to ask for help, and Rowzee knew Victor would have willingly given it. There was another inexplicable tragedy flung out by fate, that father and son had never been reconciled in this lifetime. She could only hope that it was on the cards for the next or there really would be no point to anything at all.

She’d crossed several more fields and followed a few more ragged trails by now, and was becoming aware of Teddy barking somewhere up ahead. Since she wasn’t familiar with this part of the estate it was hard to think of where he might be, unless he was in the horribly dark woods huddling round the foot of the cliffs like a towering bunch of demons.

That certainly seemed to be where the barking was coming from, and starting to worry that his collar might have got caught up in brambles she began picking her way through the densely packed pines, stepping gingerly over the tangled mass of undergrowth, and sliding on the wet leaves underfoot.

‘Teddy, sweetie, please come,’ she cried. ‘I’m not sure I can get to you.’

Teddy carried on barking, sounding more urgent and excited by the second.

‘Where are you?’ she called out, still trying to get through. She might have to go back and get Bill at this rate, but it would seem so unkind to leave Teddy if he was trapped. He wouldn’t understand that she was coming back, so she had to try harder to get to him.

Eventually the snaking brambles and twisted garlands of ivy seemed to shrink from the trees, and to her
surprise she found herself in a sort of clearing with a grimy lake, more like a swamp, at its heart. Teddy was close by, up to his shoulders in mud as he barked like crazy, seeming to want to jump in the water, but then, as though sensing danger, pulling back again. He ran to the broken trunk of a fallen tree that was providing a kind of bridge towards the far side of the swamp. Rowzee looked across to where an immense jagged wall of rock soared up, as high as forty feet or more, to a cluster of trees at its summit and something metallic below them. Realising it was a road barrier, she decided they must be beneath one of the seldom-used back lanes into Kesterly.

Teddy was still barking like fury.

‘What is it, sweetie?’ she asked, going towards him. If he’d dropped his ball in the mud it had clearly sunk because there was no sign of it, and love him as she did she wasn’t about to start fishing around for it. Any closer and they’d probably both get sucked into the quagmire. That would be an awful end, drowned in mud and probably never found.

‘Come on, Teddy, we should go,’ she said, not liking the feeling she was getting here. It was cold and sinister, like some dreadful netherworld that existed out of sight and time and might at any minute suck her and Teddy into some ghastly strangeness they could never escape from.

‘That’s a good boy,’ she murmured as Teddy came towards her, but as she reached for him he moved quickly away, still barking at the swamp.

Finally realising he was trying to tell her something, she looked at the slimy water again, and this time she
frowned as she noticed that the fallen tree was resting on something midway across. It took a moment for her to figure out what it was, and as she did her heartbeat started to slow.

‘Oh my goodness, Teddy,’ she murmured, trying to tell herself that the light was playing tricks on her eyes. ‘Oh my goodness. What have you found?’

It was just before ten o’clock when Andee drove out of Kesterly, heading for Burlingford Hall. Charles had texted late last night asking her to come, and offering an apology for not being in touch sooner. For some reason she’d found the apology a little odd, but that was nothing to what she was finding her own wild imaginings, which had Jessica being held by an Amish community somewhere in the American Midwest. Or maybe she’d gone voluntarily, which really didn’t add up at all.

It had been her intention to try calling Gina again last night once Martin had gone, but she’d been unable to persuade him to leave. She’d ended up giving him a blanket so he could sleep on the sofa, and taken herself off to bed. She didn’t want to think about the ugly scene that had followed when he’d tried to join her, it was best to wipe it from her mind, and considering how much he’d had to drink hopefully he wouldn’t remember it either.

After coaxing him back to the sofa she’d returned to the bedroom, put a chair against her door and done
something she hadn’t in so long, she’d rung her mother in tears. It must have been the hour that had made everything seem so overwhelming, although there wasn’t any other time of day when she didn’t feel a terrible sense of guilt for causing so much hurt to someone she actually loved. She’d even wondered if perhaps she should do as Martin asked and try again, but her mother had put her foot down about that. ‘You’ll only end up doing the same thing further down the line,’ she’d said firmly, ‘so you might as well carry on and finish what you’ve already started.’

Ever practical, ever supportive, that was Maureen Lawrence, and Andee couldn’t have loved her more if she’d tried. She’d even babbled on for a while about Graeme and how wary they both seemed about trying again, and was it what she wanted anyway? If she was being totally honest she didn’t think he wanted it at all, was just being polite and friendly because she was so much in his world at the moment, what with her search for Jessica Leonard and new friendship with Rowzee. She’d forgotten now exactly what she’d said to make her mother laugh, she was only aware of how uplifting she had found that moment.