The Shadow Year (27 page)

‘I’m going to leave.’ Freya speaks with her chin buried into the neck of her jumper so that Kat has to lean to catch her words. ‘At the end of the month. I’ll wait until after Christmas and then go.’

Kat nods. If Freya has been hoping for an argument she isn’t going to get one.

‘I have a friend in London,’ she continues after a while. ‘I’ll look her up . . . see if I can sleep on her floor for a few weeks, just until I get some work and can pay my own rent . . . before I go back to college next September.’

‘OK.’

Silence falls over them. Freya clears her throat. ‘I never wanted—’

‘Don’t,’ says Kat. She can’t bear it.

‘But that night – can’t we at least—’

Kat turns on her sharply. ‘I said
don’t
. I don’t want to talk about it. I think it’s best we just forget it.’

Freya looks down at her lap. She flushes red and there’s that look on her face, the one Kat knows well, the one that means she is about to cry, but she bites her lip and visibly tries to fight the tears. ‘OK,’ she says, ‘we’ll just forget it.’ For a moment it seems as if there is something else she wants to say, but it must be too hard because eventually she stands and walks away, the jetty creaking her progress all the way back to the shore until Kat is left with nothing but her solitude.

She knows it’s the best they can hope for right now: an uneasy truce until Freya finally leaves. She’d like to reach out to her sister and tell her it’s OK, that it’s been forgotten – forgiven, but the truth is it hasn’t. She still feels speared by her sister’s betrayal. It hurts like a blade lodged in her heart because for so many years she’s been the one to look out for her, to protect her and care for her, but now it feels as though Freya has pushed all of that to one side and turned around and stabbed her in the back. And for what? A stupid fling? No. No matter how many times she’s tried to tell herself it doesn’t matter, that it was just a silly mistake, it always comes back to that one night, that one image of Freya and Simon – together. It’s time Freya grew up. It’s time she understood that there are consequences to her actions and that some situations can’t be made better with a simple fluttering of her big blue eyes and a half-hearted apology. Some situations require time . . . and distance. Yes, she thinks, it is best that Freya leaves the cottage. As soon as possible.

Kat bends down over the jetty and watches the water for a while. It lies deep and still before her and in its clear surface she sees the reflection of her own pale face, a gaunt version of herself, her eyes almost black and sunken into deep sockets. She barely recognises herself. She is translucent and hollowed-out, like an empty husk.

When it gets too cold, she returns to the cottage, making a stop at the chicken coop to check for eggs. The pig is there too, snuffling and scratching at the ground where the chickens have spilled their grain. She reaches in and nudges the warm birds out of the way but there is nothing to collect – again – so she returns to the cottage with Wilbur trotting along at her heels. It’s only as she steps through the back door and into the kitchen that she realises she has walked into a full-blown row. Carla stands with her hands on her hips, her frizzy auburn hair standing in an untamed halo about her head and a furious scowl on her face. To Kat, she looks like a wild banshee woman. ‘I told you we had to space them out. They need air to circulate around them. This box is completely spoiled. Look!’ Carla shakes a cardboard box of crab apples in Ben’s face. ‘Ruined.’

‘Calm down, will you? I don’t know why you’re going on at me. You never told me we had to store them in a particular way.’

‘Yes I did.’

‘No, you didn’t. Anyway, if it was so important, why didn’t you do it yourself?’

‘I would have but you never let anyone else get a look in. You run this kitchen like it’s your own private domain. Don’t you think I might like to cook something once in a while? Or Kat might like to?’ Kat ducks her head at the mention of her name. ‘Or what about Mac or Freya?’ Carla continues.

‘You know what,’ says Ben, hurling a tea towel at the sink, ‘be my guest. I didn’t ask to be your personal chef. I’d like to see the rest of you try to find anything better in that bloody pantry.’

Like a protective parent, Kat scoops up the pig and carries him into the lounge where Simon lies sprawled on a beanbag before the fire, a cracked paperback in his hands. ‘Here,’ he says, seemingly oblivious to the argument drifting from the kitchen, ‘listen to this: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”.’ He glances up at her with a meaningful look but she just stares back at him, her face blank. ‘OK. How about this bit.’ He flicks forwards through the pages. ‘Here it is: “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board.”’

‘What is that?’ Kat asks, settling the pig beside the fire before perching opposite Simon on the edge of the sofa.

‘
Walden
. Written by Henry David Thoreau in the 1850s. Now there was a man ahead of his time.’

She nods and picks at the threads of stuffing bursting from the armrest. ‘So you’re saying it’s OK we’re all hungry because we’re living a life of sincerity and truth?’

Simon shakes his head, visibly irritated. ‘That’s not what
I’m
saying, it’s what this guy’s saying. Thoreau.’ He shakes the book. ‘But you have to admit, it strikes a chord, no?’

Kat nods and turns her head towards the kitchen from where another round of angry shouts explodes. ‘Do you think we should intervene?’ she asks, watching the piglet stretch out its trotters and then close its eyes to sleep.

Simon shakes his head. ‘Let them have it out. It’s been brewing between them for days. Probably do them good to let off a bit of steam.’

‘It sounds like we’ve got more food issues,’ she says. ‘Apples this time.’ She studies his face looking for traces of concern.

‘Oh yeah?’ he says but his attention is back in his book.

‘Yeah,’ says Kat. She doesn’t need to mention the potatoes or the sack of flour that have already spoiled. They are all aware of their dwindling supplies. She hesitates then decides she has nothing to lose. ‘I’m worried, Simon. I think everyone’s sick of living off nuts and rice. Morale’s pretty low, don’t you think?’

Simon sighs and puts the book down onto the floor beside him. ‘You worry too much, Kat, you know that?’

‘But everyone’s so hungry.’ It comes out like a whine and Kat sees the irritation flash across his face.

‘What would you have me do, Kat? Magic up a fat goose and an enormous trifle for your consumption? I didn’t
force
anyone to come and live here. Everyone understood the reality. If we’re struggling now it’s because we didn’t work hard enough a few months ago. We’ll learn. There’s nothing more motivating than the ache of hunger in your belly, is there? Anyway,’ he adds, ‘it’s not as if I’m keeping anyone here. Go and join the rest of the world in their “lives of quiet desperation”. Hell, go and stuff your faces with TV dinners and takeaways for all I care.’

Kat blushes. She has never heard Simon speak so harshly towards her and instantly regrets being the one to raise the problem with him.

‘WELL IT’S A BIT LATE FOR THAT NOW, DON’T YOU THINK?’ yells Ben, his words echoing around the cottage.

Kat sighs. Simon can deny it all he likes, but morale
is
low. In the last few days everyone’s tempers have frayed and the hunger isn’t helping. Last night they barely uttered a word as they sat at the kitchen table chasing baked beans around their plates and with Christmas just a couple of weeks away she knows their thoughts will have turned towards the home comforts and family traditions they are missing out on.

The volume in the kitchen drops. Kat hears conciliatory murmurs followed by the sound of quiet sobbing. Simon gives her a knowing look. ‘See,’ he says, ‘told you they just needed to have it out with each other.’

He must have been listening to her though, because it is Simon who suggests another store-run to the group later that evening. ‘Go,’ he says, ‘get a change of scene, why not. We can stock up for Christmas.’

The five of them gape at him. ‘What?’ he asks, all innocence. ‘We are going to celebrate, aren’t we?’

Carla smiles. ‘Will you come, Kat? There’s room in the car for one more.’ but Kat shakes her head. She would like to go; she would like to wander around the aisles of a supermarket, to run her hands across the myriad packets of food and marvel at the vast extravagance of it all, but if Simon doesn’t want to go then she won’t either. As much as she would like to re-enter the outside world, she knows she would rather spend the time with him, alone.

They leave the next morning and Kat watches them go, four loping silhouettes heading up over the ridge and out towards the trees. Carla and Ben seem to have forgotten their row; Ben’s arm is slung across Carla’s shoulders, her hand jammed into the back pocket of his jeans. The sight of them, connected at the shoulders and hips, reminds Kat of the paper chain dolls she used to make when she was a kid. Mac and Freya follow slightly behind. She sees Mac say something to Freya and her sister toss her long blond hair and laugh up into the sky. Mac watches her for a moment then grins, his pale face transformed by the smile. It surprises her. Mac isn’t usually one for jokes.

As soon as they have disappeared from view, she turns back to Simon. ‘I have an idea,’ she says.

‘Oh yes?’

‘Fancy a walk?’

He nods. ‘OK, but where?’

‘I’ll show you. Come on. We’ll need the axe.’

She leads him out of the cottage and down to the wooded area beside the lake. As they enter the dusky glade she summons her courage and takes him by the hand; it feels warm and solid in her own and she squeezes it tightly and is glad when he doesn’t pull away. They thread their way through the spindly trunks of alders and silver birch trees until eventually they arrive at her intended destination. ‘Look, there,’ she says, pointing into the dense undergrowth.

Simon doesn’t see it at first, but when he does he smiles. ‘A Christmas tree?’

Kat nods and smiles. It is a solitary pine, standing at least six feet high with its generous branches tapering to a tall point. ‘Is it too big? Do you think we could get it back to the cottage?’

Simon nods. ‘Easy.’ He turns to look at her then. ‘Well if this doesn’t cheer them up I don’t know what will.’

She smiles and it feels like the most natural thing in the world to take a step towards him and press her lips against his. She tries not to think about Freya, tries not to think about the two of them together. She banishes the image by pressing the length of her body against his, chest-to-chest, hip-to-hip, showing him her full desire. He takes it and reciprocates with his own body before seizing her hands and moving her backwards, one step then another until she can feel the rough bark of a thick tree trunk at her back. He lowers his head and kisses the bare skin at her neck, runs his hands down her body and undoes the buttons on her jeans. Kat closes her eyes and lets the sensation of him overwhelm all other thought or feeling.

When Simon eventually pulls away he pushes his hair out of his face and smiles down at her, his gaze not quite meeting her eyes. ‘I suppose we should get cracking if we’re going to get this tree back in time to surprise the others.’ He turns away and buttons his fly and she nods and tries not to feel disappointed that it is all over so quickly. It happened, after all. In some small way she feels as if she has reclaimed him, made him hers and it’s a relief to know that he still wants her.

Simon retrieves the axe from where they’ve left it lying on the forest floor and begins to hack at the trunk of the pine tree. Kat watches, admiring his strength, the easy way he swings the blade through the air and takes the full impact as it connects with the wood, bark chips flying like sparks around him. Within minutes the tree comes crashing down and they pull it back through the undergrowth and into the cottage where it fills the space before the front window, its spiny apex bending slightly where it grazes the ceiling. Kat breathes in its fresh, pine scent and feels a surge of happiness. ‘They’re going to love it,’ she says, seeing it standing there just as she’d imagined.

The others don’t arrive back until late, long after the sun has slunk below the hills and the cottage is wrapped in a cloak of darkness. ‘It’s the most awful thing,’ exclaims Carla, bursting through the door first, her cheeks flushed and her eyes red-rimmed as though she’s been crying. ‘John Lennon’s been shot.’

Kat gapes at her. ‘Is he . . . is he dead?’

Freya, standing behind Carla in the doorway, nods.

‘I just can’t believe it,’ says Carla.

‘That’s . . . God . . . that’s awful.’ Kat swallows and then Carla does start to cry, tears streaming down her face. Kat moves across the room to hug her and is enveloped in a heady haze of alcohol.

‘I just . . . it doesn’t . . .’ She turns her face up to Kat’s. ‘Why would someone
do
that?’ Carla moans.

‘It was some lunatic,’ says Ben. ‘It’s in all the papers and they’re playing “Imagine” over and over on the radio.’ He shakes his head. ‘I still can’t believe we didn’t know.’

‘One of the blessings of being so removed, I guess,’ says Simon. He sinks onto the arm of the sofa. ‘Man, the modern world is
so
fucked up.’

Mac arrives through the door and places several shopping bags down on the floor. ‘Nice tree,’ he says, eyeing the pine standing in the corner of the room.

Kat nods. ‘We found it in the woods. I thought we could all decorate it, you know, make it feel a little more festive around here.’ She shrugs. There is nothing festive about the atmosphere at that moment, just sadness and a strange, lingering tension.

Simon turns to Mac. ‘You’ve been gone ages. What took you so long?’

But Mac doesn’t answer. Ben does and Kat gets the sense it has already been decided he will tackle the thorny question. ‘The girls were pretty upset. You know . . . it’s been a real shock. We thought a stiff drink was in order.’ He tilts his chin slightly and holds Simon’s gaze.