Exhausted by her confession, Emily snoozed in the passenger seat as Kate drove, but Kate didn’t mind; she was quite happy to be alone with her thoughts for a while.
Their absence from Bluebell Bank had filled them both with a vague aura of perturbation: a shapeless anxiety as if they needed to return quickly to restore the natural order of things. She urged Jasper faster, consumed with the inexplicable need to get home, trying not to mind that Bluebell Bank couldn’t be – perhaps had never truly been – her home. She felt, for all the physical distance she had put between herself and her past, like the Kate of the dirty tenement and careless mother. Which was ridiculous, as the tenement was long gone and Lily had – apparently; Kate had yet to confirm this for herself – been sober for half a decade.
Lena was alone and that was impetus enough to drive Kate’s foot down on the accelerator.
No Emily, no Bracken. Having lived so many decades alone, operating to her own timetables, it must have been challenging for Lena to accept Emily’s eruption into her otherwise peaceful, settled life; but since her illness, time had ceased to have meaning for Lena; without Emily to regulate the days, to root her schedule in the routines of another, where would she be? She needed Em’s brisk pragmatism, the jaunty Sharpie lists and messages. Now she was as defenceless as a child.
Kate wondered if Emily felt Lena’s dependence weighing on her. As they had pulled out of Kirkcudbright and headed for Wigtown, Emily had bemoaned the fact that Noah would not know Lena well enough to play the nightly game of Scrabble before bed; Kate had watched them night after night, whilst sketching and listening to the radio. She had been amazed at Emily’s patience in the face of Lena’s frustration when she took too long to come up with a word only to discover, as she began to lay out the tiles, that she didn’t have the correct letters after all. Perhaps Noah wouldn’t know how to make Lena’s cup of tea the way she liked it, black as tar and sickly sweet.
Kate thought Emily should give Noah more credit and told her so. ‘Perhaps it’s time to let the others help with Lena. You can’t continue to shoulder the burden alone.’
Emily had fixed her with a look as fierce and devastating as the one she had worn when confessing her lost child. ‘Perhaps I can’t let go,’ she said softly. ‘Perhaps looking after Lena is the one area of my life I have some control over, and the one thing worthwhile.’
Now Emily was sleeping and Kate was glad; Emily had needed to release so many imprisoned emotions, but the catharsis had taken its toll. For the first time Kate understood the mutual dependence that had formed between Lena and Emily, how desperately Emily craved the sanctuary of Bluebell Bank and the scraps of the lively, inexorable grandmother who had been so influential, in order to start the process of rebuilding her life.
Looking after Lena had given her purpose.
Kate thought of the history wrapped up in that house. Not just the memory book Emily was curating, with its precious stories and remnants, but the albums full of Lena’s family photographs, smiling, sepia images of people long gone: parents, grandparents, her brother Austin in his military uniform. And even the rooms themselves, the furniture and long-treasured trinkets and Lena’s eccentric collecting, unchanged since the first time Kate had visited as an awe-struck, nervous ten-year-old.
Lena had once woven her own life story into a book. And when it was finished she had taken it out into the yard, made a bonfire and fed the pages to the flames. Emily had been incensed by this; she could not condone the destruction of the written word for any reason, so now she was redressing the balance, with the memory book. But Kate wondered if she was more like Lena in that respect. If she had written out an account of those early years – which she wouldn’t do because it wasn’t her way to dwell – she would have wanted to destroy it page by page, watch flames consume the words and hoped for the hurt to perish alongside.
These last few weeks Kate had loved coming upon Lena and Emily poring over the memory book in the mornings; Emily with pen and notepad poised, scribing frantically, and Lena talking so loquaciously, waving her hands and weaving a spell with her words, losing herself in the threads of memory. Sometimes they would laugh uproariously, and sometimes they would cry together. Kate would creep away into the kitchen for her coffee and let them recover themselves before she disturbed them.
Those emergent, early morning moments were precious riches to Emily.
*
There was only the faintest strip of gold at the seam of the horizon in the side mirror when Emily scrambled out of sleep. She was exhausted from the emotions of the day, from exercise and fresh air and the effort of avoiding fatal decisions. Keeping Kate here was like preserving a wave: before you could appreciate the perfection of it, the sea was already drawing it back leaving only an imprint of its presence on the sand. She wanted Kate to be more than a memory, a fingerprint, a sense of love that touched her once and now was gone. She wanted her physical irrefutable presence at Bluebell Bank and, most of all, she wanted her forgiveness and things back to how they used to be. No, that wasn’t enough; she wanted them to be better, more even-footed, not Emily needing Kate as a crutch, not envy and trying to measure up.
The road was narrow, dark and woodsy, trees flashing past on either side; Kate was driving fast on the turns. Emily struggled into a sitting position. ‘Where are we?’ she asked groggily. She didn’t remember falling asleep, but she now realised she had been woken by the crashing bass of music blaring from the radio. Emily couldn’t wait to get back, check on Lena, take a shower and slip into bed.
‘Sorry,’ Kate said, with a wry grin. ‘It was either this or drive us into a tree.’
Emily yawned. ‘Good choice.’ She fiddled with the dial and turned the music down a little. ‘I’ll stay awake and chat to you, keep you alert. Where are we?’
‘We’re only about ten minutes away.’ Kate cranked her window and shuddered at the blast of cold. ‘That’s better. I could feel myself starting to go.’
Emily rubbed at her eyes. Part of her wanted to ask Kate to slow down, but another part was filled with an innominate dread that tugged at her. She needed to be home to see Lena; she hadn’t been away from her this long since she’d come to Wigtown to care for her.
Kate had no intention or need to slow down. She loved to drive and, now she was fully alert again, took joy in careening around the corners. She was thinking about Luke and hoping her speed would banish him. She wanted to hear his voice, but she wouldn’t allow herself to call, to give him hope where there was none.
This might be the last time she’d turn into Bluebell Bank’s drive; tomorrow or the next day she’d be far away from here.
She tamped down the wave of sadness and pictured Luke lying in his bed in the caravan, the dogs curled up on his feet. Was he watching television, or reading a book? Did he wear glasses to read? Did he sleep in plaid pyjamas, or boxer shorts, or nothing at all? She knew so little about him.
She shuddered in the cold car and gave a jaw-cracking yawn. Bed and sleep, and tomorrow the way would be clear. Her resolve would harden once more and she wouldn’t have these treacherous thoughts of what might have been; it was just tiredness making her weak.
Kate slowed around the last bend and flicked on her indicator for the Bluebell Bank driveway.
They both knew instantly that something was wrong.
The sky pulsed blue and yellow and much too bright. The night was suddenly loud, strident with sounds that didn’t fit. And the smell: a smoky, charred scent that hung heavy in the air. A sense of a queasy dread consumed Kate then she looked at Emily, seeing matching horror. Neither of them said a word as Jasper bumped up the track.
Finally, Kate abandoned the car and jumped out. Emily too. They left the doors standing open and raced up the last few metres of track.
They didn’t speak. There were no words; just their gasps of frantic breath as they crested the slope of the drive.
The flames were billowing like sails from an upstairs bedroom. The house blazed and burned, melting into the smoke-haze. They stalled, taking in the horror-scene: the glow of the fire emblazoned on the night sky, showers of sparks from an upstairs window, a ripple of yellow flame like ribbon and a cloud of toxic smoke, a fragment of burning curtain dancing in the draught from Lena’s bedroom.