Flight (4 page)

‘What does Wren have to do, for Christ’s sake?’ Laura hissed to Rob when she conveyed the news to him as they waited in the antechamber, moments before the ceremony. Dreary daylight filtered in through the high windows, and with the rising heat of the waiting guests the room was growing uncomfortable. ‘Man, missing her graduation’s bad enough – but her wedding? I’ve never met the woman, but she sounds like a selfish bitch to me.’

Rob rubbed his chin anxiously, before seeking out Wren to steer her into a quiet corner and deliver the news. Laura stood at a distance, watched Wren’s calm façade shift momentarily, the involuntary grasp of her fingers, the fleeting darkness that passed over her face like a shadow. Rob laid a hand on Wren’s shoulder; she shook her head, brought her expression back into repose and leant in to kiss him on the lips.

‘
Sorry
,’ Laura mouthed to her as Wren turned and met her gaze. She opened her arms and Wren abandoned Rob to rush into them, the hem of her simple lace dress bunched up in one hand, a posy of daffodils in the other.

‘I’m fine,’ she whispered into Laura’s neck, her voice low.

Laura stepped back and took her face in her hands, careful not to smudge her wedding make-up. ‘Sure?’

‘I’m fine. At least your folks are here – and Rob’s.’

‘Some consolation.’ Laura laughed. ‘His are boring and mine are nuts. I’ll be spending the next few hours worrying about the many ways they might embarrass me before the day’s out. I already caught Dad boasting to the registrar that he’s Father-of-the-Maid-of-Honour. I think he was angling for a front-row seat.’

Wren accepted Laura’s fresh tissue and dabbed the corner of her eye as she scanned the room, deliberately looking past Rob who was standing at the opposite window talking with his parents. They were all pretending not to, but it was obvious they were talking about Wren’s absent mother, as their sympathetic eyes moved from each other to her. ‘Well, you can tell your dad there’s a spare seat going if he wants it.’

‘That’s the spirit. Now, then – ’ Laura lifted her floorlength gown to reveal her Doc Marten boots, tied for the special occasion with daffodil-yellow laces ‘ – what do you think of these?’

‘I think they’re perfect,’ Wren replied, with a small, sad smile. ‘Are you sure I can’t marry
you
, Laur?’

They embraced, and Wren clung to her, the pads of her fingers pressed into the curves of Laura’s shoulderblades. It was only when the registrar entered the room and announced their ceremony that she finally broke away.

‘Love you, Wrenny,’ Laura whispered, and she let her go.

After work Rob is evasive about the letter, his mood too light, too jovial. ‘It was nothing, Laura, honestly – an old college friend hoping to meet up some time.’

‘Which college friend?’ she asks as she slices carrots, eyeing him with suspicion.

‘Oh, Dominic – he was on my course, so you may not remember him.’

‘So are you going to meet him?’

Rob turns away and starts sorting through a bowl of keys on the sideboard, making a pantomime of appearing busy. ‘Oh, no. No, we weren’t actually that close, so I don’t think – ’

‘I’d love to see it.’ Laura carefully lays down the knife, and grips the edge of the counter to steady the tremor that has been building up inside her throughout the day. ‘The letter.’

He looks up, startled. ‘Oh, sorry. I threw it away when I got to work. The bin men will have taken it by now.’

He’s lying. She knows it; he knows she knows it. That evening, they eat a wordless supper beneath the glare of the kitchen light, and later, side by side in their shared bed, they lie motionless, each listening to the other’s breath and wondering what on earth to do next. Thoughts of Phoebe and Wren muddle together in Laura’s drifting state, digging deep into her anxious sleep, unearthing feelings and memories of an age ago.

They waited so long before starting a family – eight years – that Laura wondered if Rob and Wren would ever get on with it at all. It seemed there was never a good time, when you were constantly studying as Rob was, feathering your nest, securing your future. Saving up for a rainy day. Eventually, however, practicality won out, when Wren convinced him it was a good idea to start trying, in case it turned out that he had a low sperm count or something similar. Laura howled with laughter when Wren recounted the conversation over a
pub lunch the next day, explaining in great visual detail the look of terror that had crossed Rob’s face at the suggestion.

‘He virtually ravished me on the spot,’ she said, reaching across the table to pinch one of Laura’s chips. ‘So now we’ll just have to wait and see if we can make it happen!’

Twelve months later, Phoebe was born, and Laura loved her instantly. When Rob phoned to tell her that the baby was on its way, Laura hurriedly packed her overnight bag and drove straight down, to fuss around in their big, comfy house, cleaning sinks and hobs late into the night while anxiously waiting for news from the hospital.

At just after six the following morning, Rob called. ‘It’s a girl!’ he told her, the joy in his voice streaming through the telephone line and into Laura. ‘She’s beautiful, Laur. You’ve got to come straight away – Wren’s asking for you.’

In the hospital, Wren had been taken off the main ward, as the birth, a ventouse, had been long and protracted, leaving her bruised and exhausted. The intervention had terrified them both, and for a short while, before she’d appeared, safe and sound, there had been fears that the infant was in distress. ‘We’re quiet at the moment,’ the midwife had told Robert as they wheeled Wren’s bed into the private room. ‘We’ll have to move her out if we get any high-priority cases in the night – but fingers crossed she’ll get a good night’s sleep in here.’

As soon as visiting hours permitted, Laura burst through the doors with grapes, chocolates, magazines and flowers. ‘Where is she, then?’ she asked Wren, as she threw her arms around Robert. ‘Where’s my honorary niece? I take it I’m to be Auntie Laura?’ She released Robert and bounced on the edge of the bed, clutching Wren’s hand.

A pale Wren, shrouded in white sheets and gown, weakly pointed to a Perspex crib at the foot of the bed, and Laura
gasped, bringing her hand to cover her mouth. ‘I’m sorry, little one! I didn’t even see you there. Noisy Auntie Laura, coming in here and making all this fuss!’ She brushed her fingertips across the baby’s smooth crown, marvelling at the soft wrinkling of her stirring brow. She turned to Robert and Wren, almost mute with wonder. ‘Aren’t you just
completely
in love with her?’ she asked.

‘Completely,’ they replied, as one voice.

By Friday morning they’ve barely exchanged a word. Rob has retreated so far into himself that he can’t seem to climb out, and Laura has become increasingly preoccupied by Phoebe. She continues to behave as if everything’s just fine, chatting about her college plans and making lists of the things she’ll need before she starts her taster course in April. By April it will all be too late, Laura thinks, watching her goddaughter stretch and yawn in the kitchen doorway, her pyjama top lifting just enough to reveal the soft alteration in her waistline. Phoebe catches her looking and tugs at her top, stooping to kiss her dad on the cheek. Lazily she slides the phone handset on to the counter beside Laura, having just hung up from one of her friends.

‘Hannah,’ she says. ‘She hates her uni course too. She’s thinking of switching.’

Laura holds up a slice of bread. ‘Toast?’

‘OK,’ Phoebe replies, and she drops into a seat at the table and rests her head on her folded arms. ‘God, I’m knackered.’

Rob ruffles her hair. ‘It’ll be all that hard work you’ve been doing, Phoebs. You know, lying around on your bed, listening to Radio One. You must be shattered.’ He throws a smile at Laura, momentarily forgetting their stand-off.

Beside her, the phone rings and Laura nearly shrieks with the shock of it, her hand shooting out to grab the handset on the second ring. She lifts it to her ear, her eyes never leaving Robert’s, and somehow they both know it’s a call of significance.

‘Hello?’ she murmurs into the mouthpiece.

The sounds on the other end of the phone are those of a roadside, somewhere like a motorway service station; after a brief delay, the caller speaks. ‘Hello? Laura? It’s Mike Woods here – from the newspaper.’

Laura
? ‘How did you get my name?’ she asks, his brazen overfamiliarity stoking anger in her.

‘Oh, the electoral roll. But that’s not important – listen, Laura, I’ve got some news for you – well, more for Mr Irving, I suppose. Is he there?’

Laura taps her fingernail on the worktop, glancing up to see Rob and Phoebe studying her intensely. ‘
Who is it
?’ Rob mouths at her.

‘No, so you’ll have to tell me.’

‘OK – well, I’m not sure how you’re going to feel about this – but we’ve found her.’

Laura can feel her blood pressure plummeting, the heat rushing out through her fingertips. She feels the expectant energy coursing off Rob and Phoebe as they stare at her still, their expressions demanding further explanation. ‘I don’t think I want to – ’

‘We’ve found
Wren
, Laura – we’ve found Wren Irving, and if you stay on the line, please, I’ve got an address that I’m happy to pass on to you. Have you got a pen handy?’

Outside, the rain starts to fall, hammering against the French doors in a harsh gust of wind. Laura’s hand scrabbles along the sides of the dresser for an old envelope; it’s
carelessly torn open at the top, and with an irrational lurch Laura regrets that such a tatty scrap will be used for this purpose.
Wren deserves better
, she thinks, and she reaches for a pen, turning away from Rob and Phoebe, so that she’s leaning on the counter beside the sink. ‘Go on, then,’ she says, and she begins to write down the address, one line after another. She stares at the letters she has just set down, for a moment forgetting the caller at the other end of the phone.

‘So perhaps I could ask you for a statement, Laura?’ Mike Woods’ voice interrupts her thoughts. ‘How do you feel now that you know Wren Irving’s whereabouts? Do you think your long-term partner will be looking to claim half of his wife’s Lottery fortune? It was only just over half a million, but still, if there’s anything left of it he’ll have a legitimate claim, particularly having brought up their child on his own.’

Laura slams the phone down on the counter with a hard plastic clatter.
They’ve found her; they’ve found Wren
. Envelope clutched in her hand, she presses her fist into her chest, feeling her ribcage rise and fall. She knows she has to turn back to face Rob and Phoebe, to give them some kind of account of what’s just happened, of what’s been said.

With a deep breath, she turns, her eyes darting from one to the other, alarm flooding her veins.

‘Laura?’

She can’t tell Phoebe yet – or Rob for that matter; she can’t alert them to Wren’s resurfacing until she’s spoken to her first. If Wren chose to disappear so completely all those years ago, there’s no way they can turn up mob-handed now, expecting to be welcomed back in. Wren might simply run again. Laura knows she has to do this quietly, alone. Decided, she finds her voice.

‘I’ve got to go away for a few days,’ she says.

Rob opens his mouth to speak, but she cuts him off.

‘Please don’t ask me where I’m going, Rob. I’ll call you, I promise – I’ll explain everything. But, for now, I just have to do this on my own.’

Wren turns the collar of her coat up against the chill morning as she takes in the newspaper headline, an anxious knot forming in the well of her stomach. On her daily walks she rarely looks at the news-stand – makes a point of avoiding it, averting her eyes from the misery and despair that goes on out there, beyond the bay, the world beyond her world. There’s rarely peace to be found in those headlines. Yet, today, the letters jump out at her, and without realising it she is looking, absorbing the words like ink on a blotter before she has the sense to turn away.

N
ATIONAL
L
OTTERY
C
ELEBRATES
T
WENTY
Y
EARS

Two decades. A lifetime, for some. She stares at the stand a while longer, as Arthur prepares her coffee and rummages in the rusty cashbox for change. In one swift movement she snatches up a copy of the newspaper and tucks it under her arm. ‘I’ll take one of these, too,’ she says curtly, feeling the flush rise from her neck as she runs a hand through her cropped hair and tries to avoid Arthur’s searching gaze.

Arthur recalculates her change and presses it into her knitted palm. ‘That’s a first,’ he says, folding his arms and leaning into the counter of the kiosk. ‘Thought you didn’t care for the news?’

Wren shakes her head impatiently as she pockets her change, and heads off towards the bay with Willow and
Badger bounding close behind, her red mussel bucket swinging from one hand.

‘Have a good walk!’ Arthur calls after her, and she looks back to see him leaning out across the news-stand, his
fleece-clad
arm held high in the biting November air. His smile spreads across his face in a map of weather-worn creases. ‘Stay warm!’

Once on the beach the dogs run ahead, arcing across the vast expanse of virgin sand, their tiny dachshund legs working double-time as they yap and bound in the shallow waters. They know the routine and lead the way, stopping every once in a while to turn and check, to make sure their pack leader is still in sight. Wren’s eyes move steadily across the sun-dappled waters of the bay, glancing back in the direction of the youth hostel and Arthur’s hut, where a cluster of disappointed surfers stands at the beachside, clutching their boards as they survey the flat tide. Badger comes to a stop at her feet, raising one paw and patting the scuffed toes of her walking boots. She feels around in her coat pocket and brings out a morsel of chicken to pop in his soft chocolate muzzle, holding up another piece for Willow to see. In a dappled blur the dog races to join them, kicking up fans of wet sand and spray in her rush for the reward. ‘Good dogs,’ Wren says, stooping to scratch each under the chin. She pats their rears and sends them crazing off along the beach ahead of her.

At the rocks, Wren clambers up to the highest pool and sits cross-legged at its edge peering into the deep waters, running her fingertips along the dense covering of mussels that cling to the sides. She slides the newspaper beneath her as an extra layer against the cold, damp stone, feeling angry at herself for having bought it in the first place. Perhaps she’ll
just drop it in Arthur’s bin on the way back up from the beach, save her taking it home at all. From up here, she has a good view of the horizon, where she sees a small red yacht moving through the water, heading out of sight towards Constantine Bay or Padstow. If she were to stand tall and look back beyond the sandblown path she walked in on, she would just about make out the faded blue eaves of her own cottage, beyond the rough meadow where the skylarks and swallows fly in springtime. Today, she longs for the gentle warmth of the spring, for the optimistic green shoots of April, the unfurling blooms of May. Up here on the rocks she is cold to her core, restless and afraid; it’s an unwelcome shift in mood, provoked by that headline, she knows, and she curses herself for being taken in by it, for allowing its destructive force access to her placid inner world.

She takes out her bird glasses and brings them into focus, scanning the line of the sea from right to left. Further out, a lone bird makes its way inland. It flies with rapid, shallow wing-beats, skimming and turning like an overgrown swallow before it plunge-dives into the water, returning to the air moments later. Reaching inside her parka, Wren brings out a notebook and stub of pencil.
Balearic shearwater
, she writes on a fresh page, the letters of her brisk scrawl running together.
19 November 1994
. She studies the page, her heart contracting as she realises her mistake, and she fumbles with the little pencil, angrily crossing out the year and replacing it with
2014. Fool
, she thinks. She pushes the notebook and pencil back inside her jacket as Badger and Willow scrabble up the rocks to join her. They nose in beneath the warmth of her elbows, one on either side, resting their paws on the V of her thighs. Wren scoops them closer and swipes away the worthless tears that have leaked on to her face.
Fool
.
She stares out across the bay, focusing hard enough to hold herself down in the here and now, where the past is nothing more than a faded dream.

When she’d first seen the cottage twenty years earlier, Wren had known she’d found her place. They’d waded through the waist-high grasses at the rear of the property, pushing aside brambles and easing open the broken wooden gate, the estate agent apologising even as she slotted the key into the door and warned Wren to watch the step.
Tegh
, the house name read, etched into an ancient slab of slate and set into its flinty exterior.

The cottage was small, and seemingly un-lived-in for years; as they passed through its low-ceilinged rooms, dust motes billowed and fell, illuminated like ghosts by the slices of white November sun that coursed in through the flaking panelled windows. There was nothing remarkable about the cottage itself, and it was clear to see that it was rundown and lacked any homely comforts. But something in its smallness spoke to Wren, and her heart soared.

‘God, I’m so sorry about this – I don’t think anyone’s been here for months.’ Jenny, the estate agent, held the key fob gingerly between finger and thumb, her little nose wrinkled in regret. ‘It’s not even one of my properties. But we’ve had a few issues at the office – anyway, here we are!’

Wren’s gaze moved about the place, slowly taking in its foundations: every crack, every plaster bubble, every creaking floorboard. It was imperfect, yet the floor beneath her boots felt stable, rooted to the landscape, anchored in time. She could make it work. She had money, more than enough to buy this place, to make it habitable – more than enough
to secure its walls and fold herself within. The Lottery win hadn’t been large enough to live like a queen, but already she had seen an accountant and calculated that she could make it last if she was careful – if she lived a simple life, with little expense. The solicitor she’d met a few days earlier had set the first formal alterations of her life into motion: a new surname and bank accounts, and an official letter to Robert, informing him that she wouldn’t be returning home. Wren had at first rejected that idea, thinking that a communication so final was somehow cruel, but Mr Jarvis had been adamant. ‘The last thing you want is your husband filing a missing person’s report, Mrs Irving – it could mean a police investigation. Your best option is a letter from me on your behalf, via a central London postal address, simply stating your desire to remain undisturbed and relinquishing any financial claims on your marital estate. It really is the safest option if you’re planning to make a fresh start like this.’

A fresh start.

Wren ran her hand along a dark, fractured beam, scoring its lines with the square nail of her forefinger, pressing her brow to the wood, and inhaling its salty history. The sharp tang of age was bloodlike, primal and raw; like the
sun-drenched
barns of her childhood, like the solitary sphere of childbirth. She exhaled, long and slow, paralysed in the past.

Jenny cleared her throat and waggled the key, awkward in her youth. ‘So! Any questions? There’s not much to show you, really, with it being so small. But, as you can see, this is the living room-slash-dining-room, and this – ’ she turned the handle of a door that Wren supposed led to a cupboard ‘ – must be the bedroom.’ It was big enough for a bed, a double at a push, and perhaps a chest of drawers, but not much more. ‘Is it just you?’ Jenny asked, hopefully. ‘No
family? I mean, you couldn’t fit a family in here! Not without an extension – which might be possible…’

Wren found she couldn’t answer; found herself gazing at Jenny, her eyes fixed on the girl’s finely pencilled brows, wondering what her story was, what the future held in store for her. She was only a few years younger than Wren, yet the differences between them were endless.

Jenny grimaced a further apology. ‘I’m sure this isn’t what you’re looking for,’ she said, though it sounded like a question. She turned the property papers over in her hands. ‘Of course there is still the garden – I haven’t shown you the garden yet! It’s quite a selling point, so the details say. Shall we…?’

She led the way through to a simple kitchen at the rear, the tap of her heels echoing harshly within the walls of the gentle cottage. Wren followed as Jenny drew the bolt and eased open the swollen back door, peeling away the
salt-dried
ivy that had crept over the lintel and up through the hinges. She stepped out, stood aside and allowed Wren to pass through the door and into the jagged, bright light of outdoors.

The land to the rear of the cottage was no more than pasture, gnarly and overgrown, running downhill a few
hundred
yards to meet the thick gorse bush that surrounded the property, pinning it in, holding it fast against this secluded stretch of coastal path. The garden was perfect, or at least it could be with some attention and time. But it was the view that stopped Wren’s breath. Beyond the grassy decline of her lawn the landscape opened out into a panorama of vast sky, rocky headland and undulating tide, and she halted, giddy, wondering if this might be a dream, she felt so strongly that she’d been here some other time, in some other life.

As a soaring line of migrating birds shadowed the sky overhead, Wren knew she had found her place.

Storm clouds have gathered over the bay, and Wren makes her way back home with Badger and Willow, pulling her raincoat closer still against the rising wind. She jogs across the meadow, following the flattened footpath that she and the dogs have carved out over the years. The long grasses swirl and sway like a tide, one moment rippling high and light, the next lying flat and beaten against the salted earth. The dogs love this weather and run ahead with ears trailing, weaving in and out of the path to chase and snap at the surging meadow. At this time of year Wren has the place to herself, during those precious few months between the summer and Christmas, when the holiday-homers cease to congregate in their comfortable cottages that overlook the coastline and bays of North Cornwall. They come, they go. For a while, they pretend to live real lives in London or wherever they belong, before flocking to the coast to do the same here. Like migrating birds, hard-wired to seek a warmer, safer clime.
Do they ever find it?
she wonders. Wren lives for the silences, for the absence of voice, and has unconsciously constructed a life of few words, of few sounds other than those created by nature.

As the dogs near the edge of the meadow she reaches into her pocket and pulls out her whistle, blowing it silently into the turbulent air. They stop, alert, their little heads raised to attention, and they wait for her beside the stile, until she reaches them and rewards them with another treat.

The meadow adjoins the garden, which these days is given over to a large vegetable patch on one side, bird-feeders
and shade on the other. The ground is freshly dug over, the job completed just last week as Wren began her preparations for the seasons ahead. She had hoped to spend more time preparing the ground today, thinking about the turn of the weather and the crops she hopes to grow, but she finds she is distracted, thrown off course. She unlocks the back door, holding it open to let the dogs enter. Flinging the newspaper at the kitchen table, she pushes the door shut with the heel of her hand and empties the contents of the mussel bucket into the sink for cleaning. ‘Damn newspaper,’ she murmurs, furious at herself.

Badger and Willow pad back across the room to stand at her feet and gaze up expectantly, their stem-thin tails swishing against the tiles. They know that she saves her few words for mealtimes and walks and so they think something good is about to happen. Their limpid eyes prick her with guilt, and, despite its being several hours until their supper is due, she reaches into the cupboard for their bowls. ‘Hungry?’ she whispers, and the dogs whine happily, dropping to a lying position as she puts down a fresh bowl of water and spoons out an unexpected lunch.

The next morning, Wren rises early after a troubled sleep and sets off with the dogs at dawn, walking down to the shore as daylight gradually fills the sky. Her mind hovers around the dreams of the night before – not so much dreams as sensations, anxieties breaking through her slumber, playing tricks in the moonlight. She dreamt there was a newborn in the bed beside her, nestled naked and warm against the heat of her curled body. She’d known it was there even before she woke, the soft rise and fall of the baby’s breath
moving in time with her own; she couldn’t remember the birth, or how she had come to be pregnant, but she knew the child was hers and that she must keep her close, protect her at all costs. Time must have passed – how much, it was impossible to tell – when she was woken by the sound of the child hitting the floorboards with a dense thud. Wren had gasped – leapt from the bed, sweat-soaked, to retrieve the baby, panic coursing through her veins. Flailing around in the darkness, her hands had fallen upon the baby – not a baby at all, but Badger, sleeping on his pile of blankets at her bedside. Distraught, Wren had turned on the lights of the bedroom and rushed from room to room switching on every overhead light, every lamp, pulling closed any curtains that stood open. She’d sat at the kitchen table and sobbed herself dry. When Willow trotted in, her ears cocked in question, Wren got up and wiped her face, stooping to fetch the small dog into her arms. Eventually they’d settled on the sofa, the bedroom now inhabited by the phantom of her dreams, and dozed in each other’s warmth until sunrise.