in streets; she saw her hiding in bushes, or swimming in seas, or drowning while she, her mother, called out in despair; she saw her running away from her, turning to wave once more, disappearing across the fields, across the horizon, another horizon, and another, while she followed and followed.
She saw her in the pub. There was a barmaid in Widecombe who was, surely, around the age of twenty-three, who had a fresh-skinned eagerness and sensitivity, a sweet country look that Cecilia associated with a different strand of the girl Mara she so strongly imagined. There was a teacher at Ruth’s school: a young teacher, just out of college, and Cecilia saw in her red hair remnants of the old colouring, and wondered whether her features bore something of her own. There was the girl who lodged near Widecombe and drove and cleaned for Dora who was about the same age, but whose looks were quite wrong.
I want you to know that I didn’t give you away lightly , she wrote later in Mara’s book: the book she kept for that first, unknown child, as she did for her daughters Romy, Izzie and Ruth: books recording birthdays and events and observations. But while the others’ albums were filled with photographs and dated entries, the book for Mara was almost entirely composed of speculation. I want you to know that , she wrote, as she so often wrote to her, marking dates and mapping the life she imagined for her, explaining the attempts she had made to track her down, in uncontrolled fragments of writing that managed to disturb her as she wrote them.
You have grown up believing your mother abandoned you. That’s what I can’t live with. I need you to know the mistake that this was. I want to look after you. I write to you every birthday, but there’s nowhere to send those letters. I’m trying. I’m trying now. I will go on and on and on.
When you were born, you turned to me for milk. That’s all I could give. And I didn’t even give you that. Milk.
Ten
The Garden
Was it Barnaby who tipped her existence so far into chaos that she had done what she had done? Dora wondered later. Would Cecilia’s baby have had a different future if it wasn’t for Barnaby? Was life really so random? But an image of Elisabeth always entered the equation when she asked herself the question.
‘I would now; I would, I dare,’ Dora had wanted to say to Elisabeth, but it would have amounted to a begging, and she continued to ask herself whether, if Elisabeth attempted to seduce her fully, she would take fright. The idea of an illicit sexual liaison with another woman was so intriguing, she could barely stop herself from ruminating upon it, its repellent aspect enhancing the anticipation. But guilt and fear still dominated.
Patrick had recently taken to enquiring what she did during her lunch hours, and who her colleagues were, and who she had befriended, his questions apparently casually asked while betraying a tinge of aggression. Dora listed names, Elisabeth’s always linked to her husband James’s, and attempted to fashion anecdotes of them, as though life at Haye House were nothing but a soap opera with a cast of eccentrics whose chief narrative focus was Peter Doran the headmaster. She was, she thought, mid-story, no actress, and yet lies, once started, seemed to proliferate. Not lies, she hushed herself, hearing in her mind the voice of her mother. Omissions.
And still, Elisabeth occasionally turned to her with the full heat of her gaze, or touched her in passing, or said, quietly imperiously, ‘Come here.’ She stroked her even in public in the guise of relaxed bohemianism, and on rare occasions collided with her in a corridor and found a private place where they kissed, cool-mouthed and urgent.
What, thought Dora in the evenings, if Patrick were to discover? Discover the kisses, the fantasies that infected Dora’s mind like a disease? What if he were to stumble, somehow, upon proof? Could he gain custody of their children? Of
She saw her in the pub. There was a barmaid in Widecombe who was, surely, around the age of twenty-three, who had a fresh-skinned eagerness and sensitivity, a sweet country look that Cecilia associated with a different strand of the girl Mara she so strongly imagined. There was a teacher at Ruth’s school: a young teacher, just out of college, and Cecilia saw in her red hair remnants of the old colouring, and wondered whether her features bore something of her own. There was the girl who lodged near Widecombe and drove and cleaned for Dora who was about the same age, but whose looks were quite wrong.
I want you to know that I didn’t give you away lightly , she wrote later in Mara’s book: the book she kept for that first, unknown child, as she did for her daughters Romy, Izzie and Ruth: books recording birthdays and events and observations. But while the others’ albums were filled with photographs and dated entries, the book for Mara was almost entirely composed of speculation. I want you to know that , she wrote, as she so often wrote to her, marking dates and mapping the life she imagined for her, explaining the attempts she had made to track her down, in uncontrolled fragments of writing that managed to disturb her as she wrote them.
You have grown up believing your mother abandoned you. That’s what I can’t live with. I need you to know the mistake that this was. I want to look after you. I write to you every birthday, but there’s nowhere to send those letters. I’m trying. I’m trying now. I will go on and on and on.
When you were born, you turned to me for milk. That’s all I could give. And I didn’t even give you that. Milk.
Ten
The Garden
Was it Barnaby who tipped her existence so far into chaos that she had done what she had done? Dora wondered later. Would Cecilia’s baby have had a different future if it wasn’t for Barnaby? Was life really so random? But an image of Elisabeth always entered the equation when she asked herself the question.
‘I would now; I would, I dare,’ Dora had wanted to say to Elisabeth, but it would have amounted to a begging, and she continued to ask herself whether, if Elisabeth attempted to seduce her fully, she would take fright. The idea of an illicit sexual liaison with another woman was so intriguing, she could barely stop herself from ruminating upon it, its repellent aspect enhancing the anticipation. But guilt and fear still dominated.
Patrick had recently taken to enquiring what she did during her lunch hours, and who her colleagues were, and who she had befriended, his questions apparently casually asked while betraying a tinge of aggression. Dora listed names, Elisabeth’s always linked to her husband James’s, and attempted to fashion anecdotes of them, as though life at Haye House were nothing but a soap opera with a cast of eccentrics whose chief narrative focus was Peter Doran the headmaster. She was, she thought, mid-story, no actress, and yet lies, once started, seemed to proliferate. Not lies, she hushed herself, hearing in her mind the voice of her mother. Omissions.
And still, Elisabeth occasionally turned to her with the full heat of her gaze, or touched her in passing, or said, quietly imperiously, ‘Come here.’ She stroked her even in public in the guise of relaxed bohemianism, and on rare occasions collided with her in a corridor and found a private place where they kissed, cool-mouthed and urgent.
What, thought Dora in the evenings, if Patrick were to discover? Discover the kisses, the fantasies that infected Dora’s mind like a disease? What if he were to stumble, somehow, upon proof? Could he gain custody of their children? Of
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