Chapter 70
SEVENTY
Kate waited on tenterhooks for Jamie’s reaction. How would he respond? She couldn’t help fearing another assault on Trade Cottage, or – perhaps even worse – The Old Tennis Court.
But the days went by, and none came.
Perhaps it was true what they said about standing up to bullies, she thought. When you showed them you wouldn’t be beaten, they just slunk away.
One evening, she and Matt were getting the children to bed when there was a loud knocking at the front door. They both stiffened.
Matt said quietly, ‘I’ll get it.’
She followed him downstairs. Abruptly, he pulled the door open.
But it wasn’t Jamie. It was Jason from the pub.
‘Sorry it’s late. I just wanted to give you these.’ He handed a startled Matt two pizza boxes.
Still fearing violence, perhaps, Matt handed them back to her, so he’d have his hands free. The boxes were warm, the contents, when she opened them, freshly baked in the pub’s woodfired oven. A peace offering.
‘I loved that man like a father,’ Jason said simply. Without another word, he turned and walked back to his car.
A cold snap arrived, the first of the winter.
It started with a frost so hard, it looked like snow on Trade Cottage’s lawns.
Cobwebs that had been invisible a week before now hung thick and silvery from every branch and window, as if strung from wet wool, while under the wych elm the pond formed a milky cataract that grew thicker every day.
Then the real thing arrived – a snowfall deep enough to close schools, quilting the stone table, turning Kate’s car into a giant pie topped with a thick white crust that the children soon broke into for snowballs.
Trade Cottage’s lawn turned out to be the perfect angle for tobogganing.
They improvised sledges from sheets of cardboard wrapped in bin bags, and came in after three hours, wet but happy.
Kate lit fires – Rosemary had been right, the one in the small sitting room smoked – and made hot drinks.
The house was draughty, it was true, and not entirely watertight, but the Aga meant that the kitchen, at least, was welcoming.
She checked in on Rosemary daily. She, too, had heard nothing from Jamie, and for her part was perfectly happy about that.
Kate offered to drive her to the shops if she needed anything – the roads were treacherous – but, rather to her surprise, the only trip Rosemary wanted to make was to the church, to visit Paul’s grave.
In the churchyard, Kate helped her across the uneven ground – the snow here was already dotted with fresh molehills, the older gravestones leaning at random angles, like an advent calendar, glittery with frost – then stepped back to give her privacy.
Paul had been buried next to their son, Andrew.
There were some flowers on his grave, withered now by the snow, and Rosemary crouched down to tidy them up.
She was talking to him, Kate saw, speaking out loud as if he could hear her.
Telling him everything that had happened, perhaps.
After a while, she stood up, glanced at the smaller headstone next to Paul’s, and came back to Kate.
‘Perhaps things would be different if he hadn’t died,’ she said wistfully.
Kate started to say something about the grief still being raw, but Rosemary interrupted her.
‘Not Paul. Andrew. One felt such a failure. And – well, I think I overcompensated. We both did. Trying to give Jamie everything Andrew would never have. It probably wasn’t very good for him.’
‘You’re not to blame for what Jamie became,’ Kate said gently.
‘Blame? Possibly not. But responsible. As mothers, we always are.’
Kate dropped her off at The Old Tennis Court, then went on to Trade Cottage. As she parked – carefully: the compacted snow had refrozen and the ground was slippery – she noticed a duck flapping erratically by the frozen pond.
She suddenly realised it was the only one. The other ducks – around half a dozen – were all gone. But where? Their little island was covered in snow, and she could see what looked like webbed footprints . . .
The ice. The pond freezing over had made their island vulnerable to predators, she realised. Going closer, she saw feathers, a gruesomely bitten-off foot. A fox, doubtless itself starving in the snow, had killed them all.
The remaining duck was badly injured – one wing was almost ripped off, and its leg was bent at a peculiar angle. She took off her coat and threw it over the bird so she could pick it up. Then she hesitated. She could take it round to Rosemary, she supposed, and ask her to dispatch it.
Or she could do it herself.
Quickly, so she didn’t have time to think about it, she got hold of its neck, twisted and pulled. The bird jerked and twitched. Then it was still.
Standing up, she threw it in the skip. It was horrible, and she felt mildly sick, but she also felt a surprising sense of achievement.