Chapter Four 2025
Chapter Four
It’s only when Astrid goes back upstairs after coffee and oatmeal that she realizes what the off feeling is. The door to the spare room is ajar. The door to the spare room is never ajar.
Stepping inside, her heart pounding, she sees the thing she has always dreaded: The window is open. A window that has access to the flat roof of the kitchen. A window that an intruder could easily access, but for the fact that she was careful to install a lock.
But one pane is smashed. A pane that allowed an arm to snake through, open the lock from the inside.
“Oh shit.” She feels as if she is going to vomit. The cupboard doors are open; things have been rifled through. Papers. News clippings. Old magazines she was featured in.
Is this random? she wonders. Or could someone be after the tapes, the tapes she had almost forgotten about, the tapes Callum just talked about on a podcast.
She gathers the things strewed on the floor, wondering if she should call the police.
She picks up a yellowing newspaper, the headline shouting how the marriage was never legal.
She’s grateful it no longer hurts. How Callum refused to pay her a penny in the divorce, claiming it was never legally binding.
He argued that their ceremony was spiritual, but not legal; therefore, there was no marriage to dissolve.
He won. The High Court in London annulled the marriage on the grounds that it had no legal validity under Spanish or English law. Astrid received a small settlement, but nothing like the kind of money to which she would have been entitled had they been, as she had always thought, married.
She files the papers away, and texts her handyman to come over and fix the windowpane and put bars on all the windows. It may have been a random burglary, she tells herself. She doesn’t allow herself to think of why, if that was the case, nothing was taken.
“I’m afraid we can’t extend the overdraft coverage again, Ms. Lane. We are so sorry, but unless this is paid off by the end of the week, unfortunately, we can’t continue to be your bankers.”
“I’m depositing a check for three thousand pounds now. I’ll have the rest by the end of the week.” Her voice is confident, but the only way she can pay this off in time is to ask Zara, which is the one thing she doesn’t want to do.
The sun is shining as she steps into Hyde Park to try and figure out how she can raise money.
She is already taking every catering gig she can.
Astrid has prided herself on working, supporting herself, not letting Callum screwing her in the nondivorce get her down.
Even though at times like this she just wants to curl up into a ball and weep.
The walk does her good. Emerging at Lancaster Gate, she hails a cab to take her to Zara’s, nervous at seeing her daughter after so long, inordinately grateful for the opportunity.
They hadn’t spoken in weeks. Maybe months.
Astrid would send the odd text, but rarely got anything more than an emoji in response.
Now Zara has reached out twice in one week, and—most surprisingly of all—has invited her mother to get ready at her place before they head to the retrospective together.
“Darling!” Astrid kisses her daughter on each cheek before walking into her apartment.
Once a grand house in Bayswater, it has been carved up into multiple flats.
Zara’s is small, but with high ceilings and filled with light.
Sunlight streams in through the floor-to-ceiling Georgian sash windows, and everything is meticulously tidy.
“How on earth did I end up with such a minimalist daughter?” Astrid says with a smile, putting her bag down.
“My reaction against my chaotic childhood.” Zara grins.
“The flat looks beautiful. You’ve done so much!” She takes in the gallery wall, paintings covering the wall opposite the large marble fireplace. “I love that sofa.”
“Found it on the street!” says Zara in delight.
“Ah, London. I miss it.”
“Do you?”
Astrid laughs. “Not really. It’s always fun to come in and be a bit glamorous for a little while, but I love my rural tranquility.”
“Cup of tea?”
“Lovely.” Astrid follows Zara into the kitchen and perches on a stool at the kitchen bar as Zara gets the tea ready, admiring her daughter’s long limbs, her thick, shaggy hair, so like her father’s.
“Mum?” Zara turns as she dunks the tea bags. “Did you listen to the podcast I sent you?”
“Yes. Well. Some of it. I haven’t finished yet.”
“Did you listen to the bit on Lily Morehouse drowning and the suspicion that it wasn’t an accident? That someone murdered her?”
Astrid falls silent.
“Mum?”
“No. I didn’t get to that bit.”
“I’ve been going down a rabbit hole. I had no idea that Dad recorded everything. Do you know about the tapes?”
Astrid laughs. “Of course I know about the tapes. All your father did was download everything he was thinking about onto those old cassettes.”
“Do you think he talked about the death of Lily on them?”
“I don’t know.” Which is true. She doesn’t. Half the time she didn’t listen to the tapes, the amount just too overwhelming. Or she’d be furious with Callum, knowing he was sleeping his way through the United States on tour. Receiving those tapes every day just felt like a slap in the face.
Beyond anything else, back in those days, after Lily’s death, she tried to drown her pain at everything in alcohol. What memories she does have are blurry and unreliable.
“Darling, I was a bit too out of it in those days. There is so little I remember clearly.”
“So what happened to all those tapes? Do you think Dad still has them?”
Astrid laughs. “Dad doesn’t have them, darling. I do. They were just about the only thing I got to take with me when we split up.”
Zara’s face lights up as she puts her mug of tea down.
“You have them? I can’t believe it. Can I listen to them?
I want to do a story. Given that it’s the fortieth anniversary of Lily’s death, it’s time someone tried to dig up the truth.
I can’t believe no one’s ever looked at this story properly.
It’s perfect for me, especially now, and especially given that you have these tapes.
God only knows what Dad might have revealed. ”
Astrid sits up with a jolt. Might it be possible that this is linked to the break-in? Is it too much of a stretch to think that someone else might know about the tapes, might be thinking along the same lines as Zara right now? No. It can’t be. It’s just a coincidence.
Astrid shakes her head. “I don’t know, Zara. I don’t know that it’s right to drag all this up again.”
“Mum. An eighteen-year-old girl died, and I want to find out the truth. If there’s something on those tapes, I want to hear it.” There is a silence, and then her voice softens. “Mum. Please. Help me tell Lily’s story. Do this one thing for me.”
Astrid looks at her daughter, amazed at how mature she is, how independent, how strong her voice. She wishes she had been more present, wishes she had been a better mother.
Before she has a chance to respond, Zara stands up, not waiting for an answer. “Let’s go get ready. We’ve got a party to go to.”
Astrid already knows that she won’t be able to say anything other than yes.
Half an hour later they pull up outside the gallery, Astrid in a vintage chiffon dress, her daughter dressed as she is always dressed, in jeans and combat boots, not a patch of makeup, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, glasses on.
She could be so beautiful, thinks Astrid, knowing that this is precisely what Zara finds so frustrating about her.
But Astrid only wants Zara to be happy, wishes she would shine instead of hiding that beauty behind glasses and baggy clothes.
Perhaps then she’d find someone lovely. Maybe a man to take care of her, rather than the odd man, or woman, who invariably disappears after a few months.
As much as she is loving this time with Zara—and she is loving this time with Zara—there is always the slight walking on eggshells, the ripple of fear that she might say the wrong thing.
She can’t tell her daughter she looks beautiful, can’t comment on her looks at all.
Zara’s face will shut down, and she will withdraw, in the way she has been doing for years.
Astrid, who is an expert at chattering away to fill awkward silences with anything, has learned to be quiet around her daughter. But as they stand outside the gallery, she reaches out and gives Zara’s hand a quick squeeze.
“Zarala!” She uses the pet name she used for her as a child. “I’m so glad we’re here together.”
Zara turns to her mother and smiles a genuine smile. “Me too,” she says, as they walk toward the door.