When I left, my head was reeling, spinning around like a fairground Waltzer to the extent that I found it hard to walk steadily. A couple of passers-by shot me disapproving looks, clearly marking me down as a daytime drunk.
As soon as I was back in open countryside, I took a rest against a drystone wall before I passed out. I sagged down, my bum implanting itself in the wet mud with no thought for the jeans that had been clean on that morning.
But I didn’t allow myself to rest for long. I had an aim in mind, something I had to check before I could let myself deal with the blow I’d just received. That’s why instead of the text he was expecting, the one asking to be picked up so we could set off down to Wales, Jack got this.
Meet me at Butterfield Farm. Elden BD24. IMPORTANT.
When he arrived, I was standing about a half-mile from the barn where we’d had the reception, scanning my surroundings with a wild eye.
‘Kitty!’ he hailed me when he got within earshot. ‘How did it go? Are you okay?’
As soon as he reached me he took me in his arms for a hug, but I wriggled away. He was blocking my view.
He frowned. ‘What’s the matter? Didn’t it go well?’
‘Not really, no…’
‘Wasn’t your nana pleased to see you?’
‘She was right about the trees,’ I muttered to myself.
‘Trees? Where’s trees?’
‘Here.’
Jack scanned the sheep-dappled fields. ‘I don’t see any trees.’
‘Because there aren’t any. No trees, no stumps where they could’ve been…’
‘So we’ve come to see some trees that don’t exist?’ he said, sounding thoroughly confused. ‘I thought we were getting straight off to Snowdonia. Plenty of trees there to fulfil all your wildest tree-based desires, I promise.’
‘You don’t understand.’ I turned to face him. ‘Jack, you remember when we first met?’
‘Wouldn’t forget that, would I?’
‘What did I tell you that day? About where I’d come from?’
He looked perplexed. ‘What’s this all about, Kit?’
‘Just answer.’
‘Okay then. You told me you’d run away from your wedding. That something traumatic had happened to you and you never wanted to go back home.’
‘But I never told you what the thing was, did I? Rule One, right?’
‘You know you don’t need to tell me anything that makes you uncomfortable. Rule One or not.’
‘It does make me uncomfortable. It makes me feel physically sick, in fact. But I’m going to tell you now, all the same.’ I took a deep breath. ‘So this is the farm I ran away from that day. Because I saw… no, well, I thought I saw my new husband cheating on me.’
‘I guessed it must be something like that.’
‘With my mum.’
‘Fuck!’
‘Yeah. That’s what everyone says.’
He shook his head, his lip curling in disgust. ‘God, that woman’s some piece of work. I knew she was manipulative, but – Jesus Christ, her own son-in-law. That’s another level of shittery.’
I glanced away into the distance, towards the barn. ‘I know. But now… I was so sure there was a little patch of trees right on this spot, Jack. That’s where they were hiding.’
‘But there aren’t any trees.’
‘No. There aren’t any trees. There’s just my vivid memory of there being trees. And seeing the two people I loved most betraying me by them.’
Jack looked concerned and confused in equal measure. ‘I don’t think I’m following all this, Kit. What did happen?’
‘I… honestly, I don’t know any more.’ My voice was shaking with panic and fear. ‘There was this other time, when I lost my dad, I started having these really vivid daydreams. Well, no, they were hallucinations really, because I truly thought they were real. Seeing him, talking to him, forgetting he was gone: like an anaesthetic my brain was administering to itself when the pain of that loss got too strong.’ I glanced up at him. ‘You know?’
‘I know. I’ve had something similar, it’s not uncommon.’
‘Yeah, that’s what Lindy said. My grief counsellor.’
He took me in his arms, and this time I didn’t resist, resting my forehead against his chest.
‘So you think this is the same?’ he asked.
I stared blankly at the ground. The ground I was so sure had been slap bang in the middle of a little wood. I could practically see it now, and the two silhouettes, as vivid as the pain still gripping my heart. In a way, I knew I’d seen it. In my head, in my heart, it had 100% happened. And yet… there were no trees.
‘It felt so real,’ I mumbled. ‘I can see it like it was as real as you and me, here, right now. Different than with my dad. That was like… an echo of life. This, I would’ve sworn with my last breath I’d seen – something.’ I gulped a breath, feeling the panic rise. ‘If I didn’t, I must be losing my mind. No delusion could feel like this felt to me.’
‘You’re not losing your mind,’ he said gently. ‘We’ll work it out, Kit. Just try to keep calm.’
‘Yes.’ I forced my shallow, rapid pants into measured breaths while Jack made comforting noises to me. ‘Yes. I need to.’
‘What made you come here?’ he asked when the panic had subsided a little.
‘I saw Mum. And she was so certain, Jack, that I’d made a mistake. Actually laughed at me. And she doesn’t laugh much.’ I snorted. ‘Too worried about laughter lines.’
‘You saw her?’ He held me back to look into my face. ‘God, no wonder you’re upset.’
‘I survived though. It was awful, but I got through it, barely.’ I ran a finger down his cheek. ‘Thanks to you, I think.’
‘Did your nana hear all this?’
‘She… wasn’t there.’ I finally surrendered to the other feeling fighting for dominance through the shock and confusion, throwing myself back against his chest as I burst into despairing, grief-breathless sobs. ‘That bastard illness… we came too late, Jack. Too late. She’s never going to be there again.’
***
All the anger I’d been saving for Mum and Ethan, the resentment, the bitterness, every emotion I’d been slowly learning to cope with until I’d started to doubt my own eyes, was redirected towards the shadowy, murderous figure of Alzheimer’s, the disease that had killed my nan.
I wasn’t an easy person to live with over the next few days, in floods of tears one minute, ranting and raving about how unfair it all was the next. But Jack coped. He was understanding when I needed him to be understanding, angry when I needed him to share my anger, calming when I was in danger of hurting myself with it. He’d been through it all, and he knew what I needed.
The other occupants of the camper weren’t much fun to be around either, struggling through a little doggy grief of their own. Sandy had turned the van upside down, and dug up half the farmer’s field we were camped on, looking for her stolen puppies. Muttley, sensing her parent’s anxiety and missing her siblings, had started letting out a constant low-level whine. All in all, the campervan was not a very happy place to be on those hot late summer days, for Jack or for the rest of us.
We were still in Yorkshire. Nan’s funeral was scheduled for the Thursday, a week away, and I didn’t want to leave without saying a final goodbye to her.
Honestly, I didn’t know what I did want. If I’d been confused before, that was nothing compared to how I felt now. Because no matter how much anger I still felt towards Mum and Ethan, no matter how much the too, too solid image of them together haunted me, that didn’t change the single fact that there were no trees.
To give Jack a bit of a break from my miserable face, I left him to spend a quiet evening with his dogs and took a taxi over to Laurel’s. A dose of normality felt like just what I needed, and I couldn’t wait to see the boys again.
‘Come here, you,’ she said as soon as I showed up on her front step, enfolding me in a tight hug. ‘How’re you doing, love?’
‘Not so great, to be honest.’
‘Sure you can get through the funeral tomorrow?’
‘Not got much choice, have I?’
She held me back to look into my face. ‘Will he be coming?’
‘If by “he” you mean Jack, then yeah. I want him to.’ I stared at my toes. ‘Need him to.’
‘Did you know Ethan’s been invited?’
I winced. ‘Ugh, has he?’
‘Yes. My mum asked him, I think. Sorry.’
God. The funeral was going to be painful enough without trying to filter my muddled emotions about the still-legal husband who may or may not have cheated on me and the friend-slash-boss of four months I was currently sleeping with.
‘Well, come on in,’ Laurel said. ‘The boys have been asking for you.’
I managed a smile. ‘Have they?’
‘Yep. Perfect timing for a visit: Toby’s got some major news to share. I mean, major. Brace yourself.’
I followed her along the hall to her permanently toy-strewn living room. It made me smile to see it pretty much as I’d left it months ago. It was kind of reassuring, that ‘life goes on’ vibe.
Apart from visits to my nan and Aunty Julia, this was the one part of my old life I’d genuinely missed: the part that was messy and warm and boisterous and filled with love. A normal, healthy family, in other words – the only share in one I’d ever really had.
‘Aunty Kitty! You’ve come home!’ Toby yelled, abandoning his Lego and chucking himself at me.
‘Oof!’ I said as his little body collided with my middle. ‘Yes, I’ve come home. Hiya, Tobes.’
‘Yay! I knew you would.’ Four-year-old Sam bounced over so he could fling his arms round my legs as well. ‘We missed you, Aunty Kitty.’
‘I missed you too, boys,’ I said, my voice choking slightly.
‘Lots?’
‘Lots and lots. My favourite little terrors.’
I couldn’t help blinking back a tear as the pair of them hugged me tightly, holding on just a little bit longer than usual. It felt good to reclaim my place as an aunty, and to know the boys had missed me almost, if not quite, as much as I’d missed them. Laurel smiled at me while they clung on.
‘Good to have you back, Aunty Kitty,’ she said in a quiet voice.
‘Guess what I saw today?’ Toby demanded when he eventually let me go, getting straight down to business with The Big News.
‘Dunno. Velociraptor?’
‘Nope. A horse doing a wee!’
I slapped on my impressed face. ‘Did you? Wowsers trousers!’
‘And then, right. And then…’ He looked up at me earnestly, eyes glittering. ‘It farted. Super loud.’
‘Sounds like you’ve had an exciting day.’
‘Me too!’ Sam yelled. ‘I saw the horse too, Aunty Kitty!’
‘No you didn’t,’ Toby said, casting a withering look at his little brother. ‘He’s pretending, Aunty Kitty. He’s just a big pretender.’
‘Really? Can he do Back on the Chain Gang?’
Laurel snorted.
‘I’ll just finish this washing up then I’ll sort us out a drink,’ she said. ‘Think you can cope in the madhouse for ten minutes, Kit?’
‘Been looking forward to it.’
When she’d headed into the kitchen, I sat down on the sofa and patted my knee. ‘Come on then, boys. I want to hear all about this horse doing a wee.’
‘It was a massive wee!’ Toby said with glee as he crawled into my lap, his brother claiming a spot at my side. ‘I bet it could fill up a whole swimming pool!’
‘But you wouldn’t want to swim in it though, would you?’
‘Ewww! No,’ Toby exclaimed, squirming delightedly. He grinned at his brother. ‘Would you swim in a horse-wee swimming pool, Sam?’
‘No way!’
‘For a trillion pounds though?’
‘Nuh-uh.’
‘Okay, for two trillion pounds. And my Charizard.’
Sam hesitated. ‘Pikachu too?’
‘Well… all right.’
Sam paused, weighing up a swim in horse wee against the acquisition of his brother’s two most coveted Pokémon. Finally he came to a decision.
‘’K. But you’d have to give them me first.’
‘Ha!’ Toby nudged me. ‘Sam swims in wee,’ he informed me in a conspiratorial whisper.
‘I drew you a picture while you were on holiday, Aunty Kitty,’ Sam told me. ‘Wanna see?’
‘Yes please, Sammy.’
Sam darted off the sofa to fetch it, happily using my boobs as leverage to push himself down. He grabbed a crumpled bit of paper from among the general debris and hurtled back like a tiny blonde thunderbolt.
‘Guess what it is,’ he said, thrusting it at me.
The picture was just a fuzz of green with a blue stripe across the top, but I didn’t need any clues. Sam had been drawing nothing but the same four green things with their different-coloured stripes for the past year.
‘Is it… ooh, I don’t know. A Ninja Turtle?’
‘Yeah! Know which?’
‘Easy peasy. Leonardo.’
‘Yup!’ He beamed at me.
‘Thank you for my picture, sweetie,’ I said, giving him a kiss. ‘Leo’s my favourite.’ There was another snort from Laurel in the kitchen.
‘How do you know about the Turtles, Aunty Kitty?’ Toby asked, looking suspicious.
‘Believe it or not, Toby Taylor, the Turtles were around even when your aunty was little.’
‘Wow!’ His eyes saucered. ‘Were they in black and white?’
‘He’ll be asking next what you did in the war,’ Laurel called. ‘I had that one last week.’ She came in with a glass of wine each for us. ‘Come on now, boys, give Aunty Kitty some peace. It’s bedtime.’
‘Awww,’ Sam said, jutting his bottom lip. ‘But she just got here. And she’s been away aaaaaages.’
Toby folded his arms. ‘We haven’t even had a story. I like when Aunty Kitty does the voices.’
Sam put on his best puppy-dog face. ‘You’re pretty, Mummy.’
Laurel sighed. ‘Is it pathetic that even though I know he’s just trying to get round me, that still works?’
I smiled. ‘You big softie.’
‘So, Kit? Want to do storytime?’
The boys looked up at me with wide, pleading eyes.
‘We-ell…’ I said, pretending to hesitate.
‘Please, Aunty Kitty!’ Toby said.
‘You’re pretty, Aunty Kitty,’ Sam said, obviously deciding a technique that had been so successful the first time round was worth another shot.
I laughed. ‘You’re right, it does work,’ I said to Laurel. ‘Go on then, boys.’
‘Yay!’ Sam squealed. ‘Can we have Tilly and Billy Bake a Cake?’
His brother gave him a scathing look. ‘Not that. You always want that, big baby. I want Tilly and Billy Go to the Fair.’
‘I’m storyteller so I pick.’ I fished in my bag for the book I’d brought them. ‘And I pick this one.’
Sam took it from me and his eyes went round. ‘Hey! Tobes, we haven’t got this one!’
‘Yep, it’s new,’ I said. ‘You can’t buy it in shops yet. My friend gave it to me.’
‘Is it for me?’ Sam said, holding the copy of Tilly and Billy Go Fishing reverently.
‘It’s for both of you.’
‘And I’m the oldest so I should get to look first.’ Toby snatched the book off his brother and curled his lip as he flicked to the title page. ‘Eurgh! There’s writing in it.’
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘My friend Jack wrote his name in it. He’s the man who draws all the pictures of Tilly and Billy and writes the words.’
‘It’s naughty to write in books.’
‘It’s not naughty if someone wrote the book, Tobermory,’ Laurel said. ‘Then we like them to write in it.’
‘Hmm.’ Toby didn’t look convinced.
‘Read it to us, Aunty Kitty,’ Sam said.
The boys listened, rapt, as I read them the story, Toby on my knee and hyper little Sam scrambling up the arm of the sofa so he could sit on the back and look at the pictures over my shoulder. Storytime was the only time they were quiet, other than when they were asleep. Only once did Toby interrupt, to tell me Tilly’s voice was wrong and I was forgetting to do her lisp. After months off story duty, I was a bit out of practice.
They were both yawning by the time I finished, and Laurel insisted it was time for little boys to go to sleep.
When I’d helped her get them into their PJs, brush their teeth and put them to bed – a task equivalent to wrestling two small but energetic grizzly bears – we headed back downstairs and topped up our wines.
‘Knackered yet?’ she asked when we’d chucked ourselves down on the sofa.
‘God, yes.’ I sipped gratefully at the wine. ‘Do they never stop?’
‘Nope.’
‘Patience of a saint, love. I don’t know how you cope.’
‘Well, that’s my punishment for having unprotected sex.’ She cast her eyes around the bombsite of a living room. ‘Ugh, look at the state of the place. I mean I love them, but it’s bloody exhausting sometimes.’
‘Where’s Andy?’
She looked embarrassed. ‘He went out for a pint with Ethan.’
I winced at the mention of his name. ‘They’re still mates then?’
‘Well, yeah. I mean, you asked me not to tell anyone so I didn’t.’ She shuddered. ‘I try not to have him round here if I can help it though. I can’t look at him the same now.’
I flushed. ‘Laur?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Remember when my dad died and I went mad for a bit?’
‘You didn’t go mad. You were grieving.’ She shook her head. ‘God, I was worried sick about you though. When I found you at work, you looked wild. I mean, wild. I was scared stiff you might, you know, hurt yourself or something.’
‘There was so much… noise,’ I muttered. I shook my head to push the memories away. ‘But Lindy convinced me it was probably a one-off. That a first bereavement can do strange things to the brain.’
‘And?’
I stared down into my wine. ‘I’m terrified, Laur. That it’s starting to happen again. I am literally scared out of my mind that it’s happening again and this time I won’t be able to claw myself back out of the hole.’
She looked pretty scared too. ‘What, you’ve been hallucinating about your nan?’
‘No. Before that. What I told you, about the wedding, what I’d seen… I…’ I shook my head. ‘When I saw Mum the other day, she was so adamant it never happened.’
‘But she would be, wouldn’t she? That doesn’t prove anything.’
‘Laurel, you remember the barn? Where we had the reception?’
‘Er, yeah. Why?’
‘Do you remember there being a clump of trees about a half-mile from it?’
‘Well, no.’ She blinked. ‘I mean, there might’ve been. I’d been drinking, I don’t remember.’
‘I can tell you there isn’t now. Mum says there never was. And yet… and yet I’m sure that’s where I caught them. I hid behind a tree and they were arguing and then I saw them.’
‘Clearly?’
‘I heard them clearly. The sun was behind them so they were sort of shadowy.’
‘And you’re absolutely certain you saw them kiss?’
‘I… yes. I mean, I was.’ I shook my head. It felt like I was balancing an anvil on top of it. ‘God, Laur, it still seems to real. But the trees – I honestly don’t know what to think any more.’ I stared down into my wine. ‘It’s almost less horrifying if I did see what I thought I saw.’
She blinked. ‘Less horrifying? Seeing your husband getting off with your mum?’
‘Yeah. Because if I didn’t, the only alternative is I’m actually going insane. I’d have to be for it to be as vivid as it was.’
‘No you’re not,’ she said firmly, no-nonsense as always. ‘That’s olden days talk, all that men-in-white-coats and straitjacket toss. The human brain doesn’t work like that.’
‘But it can be permanently damaged, if the trauma’s strong enough. And this, Christ, if you’d seen it—’ I stopped, scared by the tremble in my own voice, and forced a few deep breaths. ‘I mean, if you could’ve seen it. If it was there to see.’
Laurel came over and put her arm around me, waiting patiently until I was calm. Her tenderness was so businesslike, it was just what I needed. Laurel never offered empty comfort. She was always focused on solutions.
‘So what will you do if that wasn’t what you saw?’ she asked when I’d pushed back the panic. ‘Do you think it’s too late to work things out with Ethan?’
‘Yes. It’s far too late for that.’
‘Not if he didn’t cheat on you it isn’t, is it?’ Laurel said. ‘You can’t scuttle a ten-year relationship because of something you might’ve only imagined. It’s not fair on either of you.’
I took a deep breath. Okay, this was it. It was time.
When I’d seen her last, I’d decided it was my cross to bear. My fault, my own idiot fault for letting Ethan walk all over me all those years and never saying a word to the people I was closest to. But with Jack’s help, I’d finally come to realise it wasn’t my fault; it never had been. It was no one’s fault but Ethan’s, and he’d trained me, him and Mum between them, to always place the blame firmly on myself. Laurel was my friend, my sister, and she needed to know what he’d done.
‘Laur… don’t hate me for this, please,’ I said. ‘But there’s something I need to tell you.’
She listened, wide-eyed and, eventually, open-mouthed as I gave her a potted history of my life with Ethan; all the parts I’d kept hidden or made excuses for over the last decade. The way he’d controlled our money, and ultimately spent the lot without telling me. How he’d stopped me learning to drive so I was completely dependent on him to take me places. How I’d deliberately lied to her on occasion, faking illness or appointments when she’d invited me over for a girls’ night because Ethan had gone into a sulk about me leaving him alone. How he’d stopped me taking up hobbies and joining clubs where I might make new friends, telling me that if I really loved him, his company would be enough for me.
‘Oh my God,’ she whispered when I was done. And though I knew, now, it wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t help a flush of shame heating my cheeks at the look of horror on her face.
‘Pathetic, right?’ I mumbled.
‘Yeah. But me, not you.’ She shook her head. ‘Jesus, my own little sister, all this time, right in front of me. How could I not see it?’
‘It’s not your fault. I didn’t let you,’ I said, staring into my wine. ‘I wanted you to like him, I guess, so I only ever painted him in positive colours. I just thought they were his quirks, you know? Dirty laundry not to be aired in public.’
‘That’s your mum talking.’
‘Yes.’ I sighed deeply. ‘It is, isn’t it?’
She threw her arms around me. ‘I’m so sorry, Kit,’ she whispered. ‘God, what must I have sounded like, trying to get you to go back to him? I honestly thought he was one of the good guys.’
‘That’s what people said when it all came out about Uncle Ken.’
‘Monsters, the pair of them.’ Her brow darkened. ‘He’s never getting into this house again, I can promise you that. The boys don’t need that sort of influence.’
I blinked back my tears and looked up at her. ‘Laur, can I tell you something else? I mean, something you already know, but I want to be the one to tell you.’
She looked puzzled. ‘Something I know?’
‘Well, something you guessed. The day I saw you in Scotland. Something that’s going to make the Ethan situation a hell of a lot more complicated now I’m being forced to face up to it.’
She frowned. ‘What is it, Kit?’
‘You were right. What you said before.’ I swallowed the last of my wine. ‘I’ve fallen in love with Jack Duffy.’