The Rain Before It Falls Page 20

  These graves have been tended, quite recently. Grass trimmed. Someone is looking after them. Need flowers, though. Will buy some, come back tomorrow. Lovely flowers on that one. Narcissus, bright yellow. Somebody cares. Wonder who…?

  Oh. Oh no.

  Rosamond. Last October. Six months ago. Only six months! Only six months too late. Here, though? She ended up here? Must have come back. Come back to where she loved.

  Oh no. If only I’d come sooner. Just a word, just a few words. Would have meant so much. To her as well as me.

  Footsteps. Who’s this?

  Man, smiling. Looks friendly. Dog collar. Vicar. Wants to talk. About to speak to me. Turn. Smile. Get ready.

  ‘Did you know Rosamond, may I ask?’

  Thea’s letter arrived one morning in late March. Gill was distantly aware of the chatter of well-bred voices from the radio in her father’s annexe, but otherwise the house was quiet, and the sudden rattle of the letterbox seemed quite explosive. She went to the front door, a half-slice of toast still lodged between the buttery finger and thumb of one hand, and spotted the letter at once amidst the usual jetsam of bank statements and mobile phone bills. The envelope was blueish, the handwriting erratic and spindly. And it was a thick letter: it felt as though there might be half a dozen pages inside, or even more.

  It had arrived sooner than expected. Little more than a week earlier, the Reverend Tawn had phoned her with some startling, but welcome news: walking home through the churchyard on a blustery weekday afternoon, he had come upon a gaunt, angular woman with time- and weatherbeaten features, probably in her late fifties, standing over Rosamond’s grave and reading the inscription on the headstone with distress in her eyes. A few minutes’ halting conversation had established that this was none other than Thea, Beatrix’s daughter, newly returned to the country after many years away. He had invited her into the vicarage, sat her down, given her tea and told her all that he knew about Rosamond’s final illness and death. She had listened with keen interest – fascination, even – and, on learning of Gill’s role as executor, had asked to be put in touch with her at once.

  ‘I wasn’t sure if I should give her your number,’ the vicar had explained over the phone that evening. ‘So I simply took her address instead. Would you like to have it? She’s eager to hear from you.’

  Gill had written to Thea the very next day; telling her all about the tapes to which she had listened with her daughters (although she omitted, for now, the details of how they had ended) and describing their hitherto fruitless search for Imogen. A search which might now, she hoped, with this new discovery, be coming to an end.

  Gill tossed the other envelopes impatiently on to one of the kitchen work surfaces and sat down at the table with Thea’s letter. Sunlight spilled over the domestic clutter, the breakfast debris, spun back and reflected by the glass panels of the conservatory beyond the kitchen windows. Outside it was a stubbornly cold spring morning, and dew still lay thick on the lawn, pale and glimmering. Gill had been about to shower and put some warm clothes on, but that could wait now. She slit the envelope open with a butter knife, spent a moment or two adjusting her gaze to the difficult, unfamiliar handwriting, and then began to read, her eyes darting and eager.

  Thank you [Thea had begun] for your very full and friendly letter.

  To be honest, I’d forgotten about the portrait of Imogen. Forgotten that it even existed. There’s so much from that time that I’ve forgotten – or maybe blotted out. It’s a quarter of a century ago, after all! And sometimes seems even longer, to me. But anyway – good to know that you have it. I’d love to come over and see it some time, if you’ll let me.

  As for what you told me about the tapes Rosamond left behind, I am simply amazed. So you’ve heard them, and you know the whole story. I don’t know how that makes me feel – slightly uncomfortable, I suppose – but pleased that you still wanted to write. Some people, when they learn about what happened back then, find it hard to forgive me – or even treat me as a normal human being. So I’m very grateful to you, for not being like that. I take a lot of comfort from it. Especially as you are (however distantly) family, and family is the most important thing in my life. Perhaps you will think that a peculiar thing for me, of all people, to say, but I think from the tone of your letter that you’ll understand what I mean. I hope so.

  Now, there’s something that I owe you in return: news of Imogen. It’s quite a long story, which I want to tell you from the beginning. So please be patient with me and try not to mind if I start rambling here and there.

  I suppose the place to begin is the time when Rosamond and I quarrelled and broke off contact.

  After coming out of prison I made the mistake of marrying the wrong man. His name was Derek Ramsey, and he was very cruel and controlling. Altogether I was with him for about ten years. He’d seen my picture in the newspaper before my trial and he’d written to me while I was in prison. He belonged to a small and peculiar offshoot of the Mormon Church, and something about my situation had struck a chord with him. He had all sorts of theories about why I’d done what I did to Imogen: they all boiled down to the idea that Satan was within her, and what had happened to her was some kind of punishment that she deserved. I was in such a desperate state in those days, and so full of guilt, that I managed to tell myself that I believed him. It was a horrible, horrible lie, but I can see now that it must have made me feel better, given me some way of being able to live with myself after what I’d done.

  The years went by, and our life together became more and more intolerable. Slowly, some little spark of independence, and humanity, that must always have been glowing inside me reignited itself and burst into flame. I left my husband, and I’ve never seen him since.

  The main thing that kept me going during this time was an incredible, almost overpowering desire to see Imogen again. By the time I left Derek, she would have been about sixteen years old. I didn’t want to disrupt her new life in any way. I just wanted to see her and know that she was happy.

  Rosamond had once given me an address for my daughter’s new family, and that was where I went. They had moved on, long ago, but fortunately the current residents of the house had been left with a forwarding address. It was an address in Toronto.

  I took this as a very hopeful sign. My mother had also moved to Canada, and although we hadn’t been in touch for many years, I’d also recently had the idea of going out there to see her. It seemed that fate (not God – I didn’t believe in Him any more) was deliberately pointing a finger towards Canada and telling me to go there. So I booked my plane ticket and left.

  I arrived in Toronto, checked into a motel on the outskirts of the city, and the very next day I hired a car and drove over to where Imogen’s family lived and parked right opposite their house. Of course this was a risky thing to do because I wasn’t really allowed to have any contact with her. It was a Sunday morning. I stayed there for a few hours and just before lunchtime they all came out and got into their car. You have to remember that I hadn’t set eyes on my daughter since she was three years old, and I wasn’t at all sure that I’d even recognize her. However, I have to say that the white stick was a bit of a giveaway! Even without it, though, there would have been no mistaking my Imogen. She had grown up very tall and beautiful, with her blonde hair cut into a nice bob, and she carried herself very gracefully. There were two other children besides her – younger children, two boys – and a big brown Irish terrier who they all made a lot of fuss of. You could easily tell that they were a close and happy family.

  The next day I came back first thing in the morning and watched as Imogen got into the car with her mother. I followed the car as they drove off to school. It seemed that she was just attending a normal high school near the city centre, not a special school for the blind. That afternoon I waited outside the school entrance, but Imogen was picked up by her mother, and there was no opportunity to speak to her. In any case I had no idea what I was going to say! The same thin
g happened the next day. But on the next afternoon, the Wednesday, I was in luck and I saw her come out through the gates by herself, and walk down to the bus stop a few hundred yards down the road. I walked to the bus stop behind her, and I got on the same bus as she did. I was amazed by how easily she did everything, how she seemed to know the exact position of the doors and the height of the steps and everything like that. People kept taking her by the arm and trying to help her, but she didn’t really need it.

  The bus was crowded and a gentleman got up to give her his seat. She sat down and I found that I was standing in the aisle right next to her. I stood there like that for almost fifteen minutes, until we both got off. It was an incredible feeling, being so close to my lovely daughter again. As we got off the bus, I actually took her arm and helped her down the step. Actually touched her. And she said, ‘Thank you, ma’am.’ I don’t know how she knew I was a woman not a man.

  We were at a stop near the university, now, and she walked to the front entrance of what looked like an imitation of an old Oxford or Cambridge college. There was a boy waiting for her there – a student who I suppose was about nineteen or twenty – and the two of them kissed on the steps. I noticed how she ran her fingers over his face, around his chin and down his neck. He was a very good-looking boy and I could see that she liked the touch of him. He took her by the arm and they went for a walk in the park near by – Queen’s Park, I believe it’s called. I followed them at a distance, at first, but then I began to get worried and self-conscious. Also I was feeling very agitated after touching her, and hearing her speak to me. My heart was going nineteen to the dozen. So I took the bus back to my motel room and lay down for a while.

  The next day, her mother picked her up in the car again. But on Friday afternoon Imogen went back to the bus stop after school, and once more I followed her.

  This time luck was even more on my side. She was early for her meeting with the boyfriend, so she went to Queen’s Park by herself, and sat down on a bench to wait. She was wearing a grey herringbone coat and pale blue jeans, and she left her stick resting against the bench beside her while she tilted her face back and enjoyed the feel of the sun and the breeze. It was autumn: lovely weather – cold and crisp. She had a half-smile on her face. I wished she could have seen the leaves on the trees and on the grass all around her. They were absolutely beautiful – every shade of green, yellow, red and brown you could imagine. There were lots of big grey squirrels running about between the leaves. I remember them, for some reason.

  I’d already worked out what I was going to do. I took the cashmere scarf from around my neck and sat down beside her and said, ‘Excuse me, is this yours?’ She put out her hands and felt it and said, ‘A scarf. No, it’s not mine. Did somebody drop it?’ I told her I’d found it on the path and then I said, ‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ and she said no she didn’t, and then before I’d even had the chance to think how I was going to keep the conversation going, she saved me the trouble, by asking: ‘You’re English, aren’t you?’ She had noticed my English accent, and suddenly for the first time it occurred to me that she might even recognize my voice. But I don’t think she did. It was all such a long time ago, after all.

  There was so much I wanted to say to her, so much I wanted to ask, but we didn’t have much time, and I couldn’t be too direct. Instead, all I could do was make small talk with her, as if she were a stranger. Most of the time we talked about the differences between Canada and England. She said that she remembered England well, even though she hadn’t been back for nearly eight years. She said that she could remember the dampness and the greyness of it, and I asked her – without meaning to be rude – how she could talk about the greyness of it when she couldn’t see; and she said that although she’d lost her sight very young, she could still remember what the world looked like. She could still remember shapes and colours. Trying to keep my voice from trembling, I asked her how she had come to be blind; but when she replied, she didn’t say anything about me, as such: just that there had been a bad accident, and she couldn’t remember much about it. And then she said something I remember very well: that she knew what people thought – that because she was blind, her life must be terribly sad and difficult – but she didn’t feel it was like that at all. So far, she said, her life had been as happy and as rich and as full as anybody else’s. Which was a wonderful thing for me to hear, as I’m sure you can well believe.

  Much too soon, I could see her boyfriend coming towards us; and at the same moment, she said, ‘Ah, here he is’ – because she’d heard his footsteps, and obviously recognized them. She got up and they kissed again and once more he took her by the arm and off they went together. But not before she’d wished me goodbye, and said that it was ‘Nice talking to you, ma’am.’ As they went, I could hear him asking her, ‘Who was that?’ but I didn’t hear what she answered. I sat on the bench and watched them until they were out of sight. It was a clear afternoon, and because Imogen’s hair was so blonde you could make them out for a long time.

  After that, I had nothing more to do in Toronto. I’d found my daughter again and I could see that she was well and happy, and she was being well cared for. I knew now that as soon as she was eighteen I would write to her family and ask if I could see her again. That day was more than a year away and it seemed an awful long time to wait, but I felt I could probably manage it, having seen her and spoken to her this one time.

  So off I went to see my mother. I knew that she was unwell. She had cancer of the throat and she was spending most of her time in hospital, now. In fact she passed away just four weeks after my meeting with Imogen. I saw her several times before she died. It would be nice to say that we made up all our differences, and that everything was made good again between us. That would have given me ‘closure’, as I believe the psychologists call it. But I’m afraid my mother remained cantankerous and critical right up until the end. The plain fact is that she never really liked me, and never wanted me. I had been a mistake; and that, to some extent, is what I remain in my own eyes, to this day. The knowledge never goes, can never be undone. You just have to find a way to live with it.

  During this time I was staying with my half-sister, Alice. I’d never had much time for her, when we were children – the age difference had always seemed too great – but now I could see what a kind and good person she’d become. And I suppose we bonded, of course, over the death of our mother. Anyway, it was Alice who persuaded me to stay on in Canada. I settled down there and got myself a part-time job and ended up staying there for the next fourteen years. After Mum died my stepfather Charles never remarried, and towards the end of his life he needed quite a bit of looking after, so I was at least able to make myself useful there. He died last year and that’s really why I’ve come back to England; I suppose there was nothing left for me to do in Canada. That, and a little bit of homesickness, although I don’t really have anything to be homesick for.

  You must still be wondering about Imogen. I wish I had something good to tell you. But when I did finally pluck up the courage to write to her family, they wrote back with some dreadful news. Imogen died. She died in a road accident, of all things. It was the school holidays, and she was out in the park with her brothers one morning, taking that dog for a walk. And apparently, although it had never done anything like this before, the dog suddenly ran off, barking, into the road, and Imogen heard him and ran off after him. Such a dangerous thing to do, but I don’t suppose she was thinking. He managed to dodge all the traffic, and landed up safe and sound on the other side of the road: but she was hit by a car. She didn’t have a chance, poor girl. It happened in a flash. She wouldn’t have felt anything. It was one week before her seventeenth birthday, and almost six months to the day after I’d seen her in Toronto. April 16th, 1992. The day my daughter died.

  How do you console yourself when something like that happens? For months I was in a sort of denial, trying…

  There were only a few lines left, but Gill re
ad no more. The last page dropped on to the table as she sat back, despondent, and her fingers loosened their grip on the paper.

  She gazed ahead of her for perhaps a minute or more, unable to think, her powers of reasoning all but crushed by the weight of the sudden disappointment bearing down upon her.

  Then scattered thoughts began shooting through her mind, rapidly, at random.

  A dog that ran away, inexplicably. First Beatrix in pursuit, then Imogen. Mother and granddaughter, almost fifty years apart…

  The Auvergne: Rosamond imagining that she would arrive there when she died. Gill herself travelling there with her husband, and then driving alone along an empty road. A blackbird thudding into her windscreen, a horrible intimation of death…

  When was that? 1992? April? It had happened in the afternoon, late in the afternoon. Imogen had died in the morning. Toronto… France… What was the time difference?

  Nothing was random, after all. There was a pattern: a pattern to be found somewhere…

  Then she was startled out of her chair by the telephone’s ringing. Caller display told her that it was Elizabeth. She grabbed the handset from its cradle on the wall.

  ‘Hello, love? Is everything OK?’

  ‘Yes, Mum, I’m fine. I just wondered if Catharine had called you yet.’

  ‘Catharine? No. Why should Catharine call me?’

  ‘Oh, you haven’t heard.’ A pause. ‘Daniel left her.’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘He told her last night.’

  ‘Oh, poor Catharine.’

  ‘She came round to my place at about ten, crying her eyes out. I let her stay the night here. She’s gone back now and she said she was probably going to call you… Mum, are you still there?’

  ‘Yes, I’m still here.’

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Yes, only… Only, I’ve had some news today as well.’