My moods, my ability to think clearly, become intertwined, oscillating from hour to hour, minute to minute. I try to do something productive but each time, I find myself standing at the kitchen window, staring out into the garden, to the place where I saw my mother that night all those years ago.
More doubt creeps into my thoughts as the day passes.
Minutes tick by, turning into hours. I am incapacitated, unable to put into action my intentions. Too frightened, crippled by inertia. What seemed possible earlier in the day, is now intolerable: a huge mountain that is too steep to scale.
Gavin and Gemma arrive home sometime before 6 p.m. I am furious at myself for doing nothing, for my lax, slipshod thinking, allowing myself to be held hostage by hesitation and indecision. A day wasted. A day of doing nothing when I could have achieved so much.
We eat, the atmosphere charged with my fear and annoyance. I try to appear normal, to chat and be amiable, but I’m falling apart, pieces of me shrivelling up and coming away, my limbs, my mind disconnected from the rest of my body. A fragmented me, unable to hold it all together. Even having Gavin here isn’t enough. Not tonight it isn’t. I need something more, something else.
Somebody else.
I wonder if I could have confided in Warren about this new episode of my life? I wonder if it would have happened at all had he still been here. I wouldn’t be living back here at Woodburn Cottage. I wouldn’t be sleepwalking again. I wouldn’t be having the thoughts that I’m currently having, thoughts that I can’t supress no matter how hard I try. Thoughts that my parents were in some way involved in Simon’s disappearance. Thoughts that perhaps they were the ones who brought his short life to an abrupt and violent end.
‘You sure you’re not coming down with something? You look tired and pale.’ Gavin’s face is creased with concern, his brow furrowed.
Gemma sits beside him, her eyes narrowed. ‘I hope we’re not putting on you too much, Grace. You’ve been cooking our meals and cleaning up after us. There’s really no need. We can do it ourselves when we get in on an evening. I’d hate to think you’re not well because of our being here.’
I smile, the effort of my rictus grin and forced demeanour making me woozy and nauseous. ‘Honestly, it’s no bother at all. I’m loving having you both here.’ And I am. It’s other things; unwanted images, my past catching up with me that is doing the damage, knocking me off balance.
They insist on clearing away the pots. I sit in the living room, listening to their chatter, to the clank of cutlery and dishes, the tap of their feet on the tiles as they scurry about. I let it wash over me, try to clear my head, to rid myself of thoughts I never imagined I would ever have to entertain. Thoughts I don’t want to face and yet must.
The evening goes by in a blur of talk about houses and work and the weather while music plays in the background, a series of soft, melodic songs chosen by Gemma. These things should help. They should soothe me, make me feel rested. They don’t. I am on edge, my nerves on fire, my flesh burning. I itch to do something, anything. I could crawl out of my own skin, shedding it like a snake, revealing a new me underneath. An invigorated me, less damaged me, all shiny and new and unscathed.
I wait, willing time to pass, willing it be a reasonable hour so I can say goodnight and retire without coming across as rude or unsociable.
It’s as the clock strikes 9 p.m. that I stand up, force a yawn and then shiver, telling them that I’m turning in for the night.
‘I’m still convinced you’re coming down with something,’ Gavin says softly.
I try to reassure him, to tell him that everything is perfect, but can sense his eyes as they follow me. I am under his watchful gaze, my every move closely monitored and assessed.
‘Honestly, I’m absolutely fine. Just getting older, I guess and in need of more sleep than you youngsters.’ My face is tight as I smile. ‘See you both in the morning. Sweet dreams.’
I give them a wink and head upstairs, exhausted by the effort of putting on a show, pretending that my life is perfect when in truth, it is on a cliff edge, everything I hold dear on the cusp of falling apart.
30
I am pulling at her, my fingers grasping at the wet fabric of her nightgown. She doesn’t seem to see me, to feel me, my presence not noted on her radar even though I am clawing at her, my nails snagging on her skin, catching on the threads of her nightie. She is still crying, her hands and arms working at the soil, pulling at it frantically.
We are wedged down the small space next to the shed. Why are we here? I shuffle closer, almost slipping myself under her arm, trying to get closer and closer. And then I am being pulled away, something – somebody grabbing at my legs. Tugging, tugging, tugging at me, sliding me backwards. My body bucks and writhes, slipping in the wet mud. I scratch and scrape at the ground, resisting. I start to shout. A hand is clasped over my mouth, silencing me.
I am picked up, held tight against somebody’s body. I continue to flail about but they are strong. Too strong for me. I use my nails and try to scratch at them, missing and clawing instead at the cool, night air.
Then we drop to the ground, landing on the saturated grass. My back hurts, my eyes are misted over with tears and rain. It’s dark. I can’t see properly. I start to cry. Loudly. Once again, I am silenced, that big hand pressing down on me. I fight against it, desperate to see my mum. Desperate to know what is going on out here. Another hand catches me on the side of my face. Stars burst behind my eyes. It comes again. Another clout. Hard and vicious. My head snaps back. Pain rushes through me, pounding at my face, my neck, the back of my head.
The strong arms pick me up, carry me towards the house, but it’s wet. We slip and slide on the lawn, big feet unable to stay upright, strong arms unable to hold onto me, to fight against the elements. We fall and stagger, air rushing past us, a sense of nothing beneath me forcing me to close my eyes.
I wait for the hit. The ground rushes up to meet us. I feel the crack, the screech of pain across the top of my skull. Then nothing…
My head spins as my eyes snap open. I remember. I remember that night. My mother digging at the mud with her bare hands, my father trying to drag me away. His arms holding me roughly. Then the hit, his large, open palm striking me. I remember it all. That night. The violence. The night when everything changed. When our little world turned black, the lights extinguished, leaving us floundering about in the thick, unending darkness.
I am outside, standing in front of the shed. I’m wet, the weather inclement. Cold and stormy. I’ve stopped using the top bolts, hiding the key. That’s how I have ended up here, in the wind and the rain. Since Gavin’s arrival, I have become lazy. Unthinking. And now it has put me in this position, my lack of preparation. I have been led out here for a reason. To bring it all to an end – the sleepwalking, the flashbacks. Simon’s disappearance. Soon, it will all be over.
Above me, the sky is a swathe of black, an expanse of clouds pressing down on me. The weight of the world heaped upon my shoulders. The load of Simon, his vanishing, all coming to this point, this pivotal point in my life when everything changes. When everything breaks under the strain. Over forty years of not knowing, wondering, fearing. And now, discovering, finding out what happened to my brother on that dreadful, fateful evening. I have waited so long, my past cracking open since moving here, my memories returning, a flood of them, forcing me to remember, to confront the past, face it head on. And now it’s here. At long last, it’s here.
I know now what it is I have to do. Maybe I’ve always known yet have blocked it out, the truth too painful to face.
I take a trembling breath, a gulp of cold air travelling into my lungs. I stare up at the sky then down at the ground, at the gathering of puddles at my feet. I have to do it. I have to start this thing, this uncovering. And I have to do it now.
My back aches as I drop down onto my hands and knees and scrabble about in the dirt. The rain is pounding against my back, running down my neck and under my clothes, soaking my skin, the fabric of my nightclothes sticking to my flesh like tissue paper and I am crying, snot and tears coursing over my face, mingling with the rain, dripping off my chin and splashing on the floor; not that I can see it happening, but I can feel it – I can feel everything, every whisper of wind, every beat of my heart, every pulse of my body, every drop of rain that falls from the dark sky above and hits me with force – I am hypersensitive to their presence, the impact they have on me and the wet earth beneath me as I frantically search for my brother, for what is left of him after being buried here for all these years. Decade after decade after decade, left out here on his own in the pitch black; season after season, summer through to winter, my dear, beautiful brother exposed to those icy, unforgiving evenings, those long, lonely evenings where the wind rages like a demon and the wild animals prowl, cawing and hooting and growling, their cries and mating calls filling the wide spaces of the village and beyond, a reminder that the darkness is designed for those who do not speak, their language known only to one another, not for us diurnal creatures who shelter indoors in the safety and warmth of our homes. Except for Simon. He has been out here all that time. He has heard the hoots of the owls, the screeching of the wild animals that prowl and hunt and scavenge. He has lain here in the darkness and the silence, waiting to be found.
I stop, my limbs numb and sore, my vision misted with tears. I still cannot quite believe that he was here all the time, in my garden, so close to the cottage, to the place where he was born, spending nearly every day of his short, sweet life playing, sleeping and eating. He smiled, he cried in this house, in this garden, on this patch of lawn. He loved, he laughed, he feared. Oh God, the fear he must have felt…
And now I am up close to his final resting place, to where he lies buried in the loam. He is here, so near to where I am crouching. I lower my head, placing my ear to the ground, listening for him. And I think I can hear it too – his heartbeat. His breathing. The pulsing of his soul as he cries out for me to unearth him, to be exposed once more and taken to a better place, somewhere where he can rest and be free, not lodged under this edifice, trapped next to a dirty wooden shack that is on the point of collapse after years and years of neglect. He deserves better. He deserves to be free.
Fingers numb with the cold, I carry on, clawing at the soil: digging, scooping up handfuls of wet earth, my nails embedded with it, brown crescents of soil, the smell of it filling my nostrils. The rain soaks me, runs down the back of my nightclothes, down my neck, soaks into my skin. It’s fitting, I think, that I have come full circle. I am my mother all these years later. I am her, stooped down, crying, scratching, scrambling in the dirt. I know now what it was she was doing that night, who she was trying to find.
‘Mum? Mum! What the hell are you doing?’
I don’t turn around. If I turn to look at his face, to see the horror in his eyes, I might be forced to take stock, to stop. And I can’t stop. I’ve come too far. No going back now. Just a relentless march towards the truth.
‘Mum, stop it! What’s the matter with you?’ Gavin is next to me now, his arms hooked around my shoulders, his weight pulling me to my feet.
I lash out, knock him off balance, see him in my peripheral vision as he staggers and falls to the floor. I don’t stop, don’t make any attempt to apologise, to help him back up. I carry on, my arms, my hands pumping furiously, clawing, grasping at clumps of soil, throwing them aside. Trying to find him, to locate Simon. My Simon. He’s here. I can feel him, my dearest brother. Our little boy. The boy who never grew old. I can feel him beneath me, can see his arms as he reaches out to me, crying my name. Begging me to help him.
