The metal gates to the house jolt open and we head up the drive. Across the other side of the lawn a laborer slams a lump hammer into the walls of an old bunkerlike building, but stops work at the sound of crunching gravel, stands upright and, with a halo of silver hair backlit by the low December sun, transforms into Bianka.
“Mum,” Laika says, her voice ripped by emotion. I slam on the brakes.
Laika throws open the car door, jumps out and starts sprinting just as Bianka starts hurtling toward the car. Willa steps from the house to the terrace, sees the car and starts running too.
I climb out of the driver’s side and, from a distance, I see them collide on the lawn, the three of them coming together as one, finding each other, arms, hands, heads, three bodies connecting perfectly, the silver light of winter between them closing, and then disappearing altogether.
***
I turn away, pull out my mobile and call Cat.
“Where in God’s name are you,” she says, “and where’s Claudette? We’ve been out of our minds.”
It’s not like Cat to worry. I can hear the strain in her voice, fear thinly disguised by irritation, and I’m instantly filled with remorse for not having let her know we were safe. I walk slowly down the garden so I can fill her in, giving her the astonishing story of the day piece by piece, and she listens, occasionally interjecting my account with the words Holy fuck.
Finally I say, “Look if it’s okay with you and Nate, I think we’d all better stay here tonight. I can’t rip Laika away so soon, and, also, I need to find a way to talk to Willa about Jamie. I’ll bring Laika back tomorrow. She said she’ll call Nate later tonight. She’s going to tell him everything and then we can let them talk more in the morning.”
“Okay,” she says, “fucking hell,” then, after a moment, “I love you, you know.”
And I do, I absolutely know.
The day is plummeting into night, a pearl moon rising out of a flood of brilliant air. I stick my phone in my pocket and hug my coat tightly around me, tucking my chin deep into my chest. On the ground by my boot, something glints in the fading light. I bend down, pick it up and discover that it is a small shard of pottery covered in black-and-gold scales. A little further away, I spot a second piece in the grass. I pick that one up too, and place the two together to see if they might fit. I’m about to turn back toward the house when I see another bit, then another. I stop picking up the pieces and start to simply follow the trail, and they lead me across the lawn until finally I am standing by the side of a deep pit, which after a moment I realize must be the old swimming pool. In the deep gloom of the falling night, it looks uncannily like an open mouth, ringed with ancient, tiled teeth. In the deep end a syrupy violet puddle surrounds a vast ragged island. The gathering dark makes it hard to see, but, as my eyes adjust, I see it is, in fact, a heap of old clothing: suits, jumpers, jackets, jeans, shirts, socks. Shoes. Also framed photographs, papers. Box files, golf clubs, a suitcase, leather bags. A broken gin bottle with a heavy glass base. And, scattered over the entire pile, are hundreds and hundreds of shards of broken pottery, and all of them, every last piece, glimmering with the luster of tiny golden scales.
“There you are.”
I jump. “Willa. I didn’t hear you.”
I turn toward her. In her arms she carries a pile of heavy winter coats, beautiful, desirable things made of thick cashmere and wool. In a small, mechanical action, she opens her arms and lets the entire lot drop into the deep end of the empty pool.
“Mum’s getting it filled in tomorrow,” she says. “She’s decided she’d rather have a rose bed there instead.”
I turn toward her slowly. My breath forms soft, empty speech bubbles in the chill winter air.
“Where’s your dad?”
“Gosh,” she says mildly, “overseas, I suppose. We never really know what he’s up to these days.” Her eyes gleam in the iridescent night.
I pause, and for a beat we just stare at each other.
I say, “How d’you get that scratch on your face?”
Her hand moves to her cheek, and her fingertip delicately traces a thin red line. Then, in a voice as soft as the silken night, she says, “Mum and I were doing some gardening earlier. We had a to-do with some brambles.”
***
They talk into the night, the three of them starting a journey of healing and understanding that I imagine will take them years. At some point I tell her about our visit to the flat and she listens in silence, then tells me she’s okay. “It’s over,” she says, “and I’m okay.” Eventually I leave them at the kitchen table and make my way to bed.
But I don’t sleep. I can’t. I stay awake all night, staring into the gloom with open eyes. Above me, the nebula of my thoughts blooms and unfolds. I think about all the small things that build and destroy us, all those little things we choose to hide and reveal, forget and forgive. How we all carry hidden histories that we continually circle back to, the things that make us soar, or slowly unwind. I think about the life I have lived and all the things I know. The vows and promises I have made to others and those they have made to me. I think about my duties and obligations as a mother, daughter, sister, wife, friend. As a decent human being. The things that I have always known and understood, the things I’m prepared to stand up for, put my name to, hold myself accountable for. I think about my beautiful parents, how their love has allowed me to grow into the person I am. What it means to love at all. I think about Willa.
And what I’ve got to do.
***
Willa, Laika and I leave the next morning after breakfast, the sisters promising to return later that day. I am moon-eyed from lack of sleep.
“Jamie sent me a text this morning,” Willa says, as I pull out of the drive and turn on to the road. “He said he’s very sorry and that he hadn’t meant for things to turn out like that or for me to find out the way I did, and, also, that he hadn’t known how to tell me.”
“All the excuses.”
“Personally I think you had a close escape,” Laika says. “From what I saw, you were engaged to our dad.”
“Jamie’s not a monster,” Willa says, “and it’s not entirely his fault. He didn’t start out like that. He changed. Dad got to him, I think.” She pauses, then adds, “Anyway I’m not even sure if I like men.”
“Good grief, Willa,” I say, “that I could have told you years ago.”
She turns to me, laughing, and for a moment I see her as she once was, back in our shared bedroom at school, finding out who she really was, so far away from her father’s control. And finally, finally, something slips into place. Bryce would never have accepted us as a couple. If she’d stayed with me, her mother would have lost both her daughters. She didn’t choose me because she couldn’t choose me. She wasn’t ever free.
“What a mess,” Willa says. “There’s so much to sort out. Selling the flat for a start.”
“So keep it. Buy Jamie out.”
“Not possible,” she says, “not on my pay.”
“Stop.” Laika slams her hand on the dash. I slam my foot on the brake and we come to a sudden stop in front of a large, churned-up plot. Beyond the mountains of frozen mud is a small tile-hung cottage caged behind a wire fence strung with multiple signs reading keep out and demolition site.
“I still can’t believe you were here,” Willa says. “It’s been empty for years. Your friend Frieda left it to her cats—did you know that? It was all over the news—and, trust me, there’s nothing the press love more than a story about a batty old lady. There was a massive legal battle over the will—it must have practically bankrupted the claimants. Anyway. Nothing could be done: it was completely fixed in stone. She’d stipulated that the house had to be kept warm and all of the kitties had to be fed and watered and cared for until the end of their natural lives. It took almost a year for the courts to agree they could even be neutered. The last one died only a couple of years ago. It must have been bloody ancient.”
Laika grins. “I told you she was wonderful. Come on, let’s take a look.”
She jumps out of the car, and a moment later we follow, stumbling our way over the clefts of frozen mud toward the old house. Then Laika feels around the inside of the roof of the porch and to our utter amazement produces an old key hidden inside a deep crevasse. We let ourselves in.
Inside is a real mess. It looks as if the place has been done over, drawers and cupboards left flung open, oak paneling ripped away and left in heaps, revealing a carcass of bare plaster and struts. In the kitchen Laika wraps two old brown mugs patterned with orange flowers in a tea towel and places them carefully inside her backpack. Then we head upstairs, looking first at Freida’s bedroom and then at the little room at the end where Laika slept, still with its wallpaper of tiny yellow flowers.
Finally we visit a tiny box room. It’s clearly empty, but Laika drops to her knees and starts tugging at wide section of skirting board. Nothing happens.
“What’re you doing?” Willa says.
She pulls again, and Willa gives me a look of surprise as this time the board comes away in her hand, revealing a small crawl space under the eaves. Laika sticks her arm inside and feels around, then pulls out a little dusty leather box. She flips open the lid and lifts out a photograph of two serious little girls seated side by side.
“That’s Elfrieda,” she says, tapping on one of the girls, “and that’s her sister, Elisabeth.”
She looks at the image for a long time, then passes the rest of the box to Willa.
“Look after this for me, will you?” she says. “I’ve got what I wanted.” Willa looks inside the box, her face baffled for a moment, then utterly amazed. She holds up a necklace clustered with diamonds, her mouth opening in surprise.
“Take that one. Use it to help buy out Jamie. Think of it as a ticket from Frieda, sister to sister. Nate’s group could do with a few new instruments too. As for the rest”—she turns to me, searching my eyes—“Robyn, d’you reckon you could help me track down Jabir?”
“He’s clearly checking the site.”
