The Shadow Year (45 page)

‘Oh,’ says the man, looking a little sheepish, ‘my mistake. Sorry to bother you.’

She hurls her bag into the passenger seat and starts the car with an angry roar. Lies. It’s all lies. At that moment she doesn’t care if she never sees her mother again. Too angry for tears, she revs the engine again and speeds out of the car park with a spray of gravel. She circles the village green once and then races all the way back to London without so much as a backwards glance.

22

MAY

1981

The May Day celebration is Simon’s idea. He broaches it with them over dinner one night. ‘It’s traditional,’ he tells them. ‘We’ve survived winter. It was bloody hard, but we did it and now we should celebrate. We should show appreciation for what the land has provided us with so far . . . and ask for luck with this year’s crops. After all, new life is coming.’ Kat notices his eyes flick to Freya’s swollen belly.

‘Our crops?’ laughs Ben. ‘Steady on, mate. You make it sound as though we’ve been out in peasant smocks sowing fields of wheat and corn.’

‘Oi!’ protests Carla, ‘they might not be fields but I’ve been working hard out there. We’ve got rhubarb, and lettuces coming through, the first pea shoots too. Soon we’ll have carrots, marrows, strawberries, beans, maybe even some tomatoes if we’re lucky.’

Simon smiles. ‘So, what do you all think? We deserve a little celebration, right?’

‘How do we even know it’s May Day?’ asks Kat. ‘I lost track of dates a long time ago.’

‘Well, it’s definitely the right month, that’s a start isn’t it? What does it matter if it’s the first or the twenty-first? Let’s just enjoy ourselves. It’s been too long since we had a little fun.’

Kat shrugs. ‘Let’s do it,’ she says, trying to conjure some enthusiasm, but when she looks across at Freya with her head bowed and her enormous stomach protruding over the top of the table, Kat feels her bitterness coil and constrict around her guts.

Ben builds a stone hearth down on the shore of the lake and fetches kindling and logs. He fashions a basic but effective grill. Simon takes the fishing rods out onto the lake and ends their run of bad luck by catching four juicy perch within an hour. Kat helps Carla in the vegetable garden and they return to the cottage triumphant with spring greens and a bowl of tiny pink radishes. Mac does his bit too. He strikes out early with the traps and gun and arrives back that afternoon with a brace of plump wood pigeons and fragrant wild garlic pulled from the forest floor. Kat sees him holding the birds up for Freya’s inspection, her sister congratulating him with a smile and the lightest touch on his sleeve. As the kitchen fills with produce, their excitement grows. It’s as though they are all trying to banish the memory of the recent weeks of stress and discord.

Watching her friends, Kat is reminded of how it felt all those months ago when they had first arrived at the lake, all of them giddy with the freedom and excitement of discovering a place all to themselves. Somehow it feels as though they are coming full circle. It’s there in the return of the yellow cowslips and white puffs of water hemlock growing near the lake, there in the blush of pink honesty flowers blooming near the cottage and in the forget-me-nots meandering across the grassy bank. The valley is alive once more with plants and insects, the splash of ducklings and the shimmering warmth and light she remembers from a year ago.

‘See,’ says Simon, wrapping an arm companionably around her shoulders, ‘this is going to be fun.’

She nods. It
is
a good idea. After a long winter of sickness and hunger Kat can see that they need something to celebrate and for the first time in ages it feels as though they are pulling together again, a group united by a common purpose. She leans into Simon and beams up at him with her brightest smile.

‘Where did Freya get to?’ he asks, ruining the moment.

‘Beats me. You know,’ she adds, ‘I’m not sure she’s contributed anything to the meal tonight.’

Simon sighs. ‘I suppose we can let her off, in her condition.’

Kat nods again but inside she simmers. Why should Freya be let off the hard work? They all excuse her now, for being big and slow, for drifting around aimlessly, lost in her own world, but it annoys Kat. She lives there with them all. She should be made to join in.

She finds her sister on the fallen tree trunk down near the water’s edge, gazing intently at something hidden within her cupped hands. She is wearing her usual shapeless dress, her velvet slippers and her hair in a loose tangle around her shoulders. ‘Are you going to help us today . . . or what?’ Kat has meant to sound encouraging, but instead the words come out stiff and angry.

Freya just shrugs and Kat feels her anger flare. Is she really
still
punishing her for Wilbur? It’s been days and she has hardly spoken to her.

‘We’ve got fish as well as Mac’s pigeons for dinner tonight.’ Kat cranes her neck and sees the dragonfly nestled on the palm of her sister’s hand, its body shining iridescent green in the sunlight. ‘Is it alive?’

Freya nods and Kat watches as the breeze catches a strand of her sister’s fair hair and lifts it away from her face. She stares at her, transfixed. For just a moment it’s as though the faintest outline of someone else has been overlaid onto her sister’s profile; it fuses in place for a split second before vanishing. Kat blinks. ‘You remind me of her, you know,’ she says.

Freya can’t help her curiosity. ‘Who?’

‘Mum.’

Finally, Freya turns to Kat and studies her with eyes as clear and blue as the lake before her. ‘I don’t remember her.’ She hesitates. ‘What was she like?’

Kat thinks. ‘Fair, like you, and fun too . . . when she wasn’t drunk . . . or high. She liked to sing . . . she loved that song, “Pretty Woman”, you know the one. She’d sing it over and over. Sometimes she would spin us round the kitchen, grab us under our arms and twirl us round and round until we begged her to stop. Do you remember that?’

Freya shakes her head, but a small smile creeps across her face. She turns away from Kat to hide it. ‘I wish I could remember. I’m jealous that you do.’

Kat gapes. ‘
You’re
jealous of
me
?’

Freya nods but she won’t look at her.

Kat would laugh out loud if it wasn’t so ridiculous. She would gladly swap her memories. They are lodged like shadows deep in her subconscious but the sight of her sister, pregnant and waddling about the place, has unlocked them from somewhere inside. She remembers their mother shuffling about the tiny flat, her belly jutting like a football beneath a thin, cotton dress; then later, a screaming baby in her arms and their father red-faced and shouting,
shut that bloody baby up!
She sees a young Freya toddling around in a dirty nappy, emptying a packet of cigarettes out across the floor; her mother weeping over a plate of burnt sausages as she reaches, unseeing, for the vodka bottle beside the sink. It isn’t much, but she
does
remember.

‘Would you ever try to find her?’ Freya asks.

‘No.’ Kat shakes her head. ‘The last time she left us . . .’ Kat swallows. ‘If those men hadn’t arrived from the electricity company with their warrant . . . they said we could have died.’ She shakes her head. ‘I have no desire to find her.’

Kat notices her sister’s shoulders sink a little lower. Both of them understand how it is: there is no one else. They are all they’ve got and that’s why Freya won’t leave now. Even though she is miserable, there is nowhere else for her to go. So she stays, and every day she grows bigger with Simon’s child, and every day Kat’s jealousy and bitterness grows a little stronger. It creeps up through her like the thick green vines climbing across the exterior of the cottage. She can feel it tangling around her heart, squeezing the life out of it. It’s such a messed-up situation and Kat has no idea how to fix it. All she knows is that things can’t carry on as they are because like it or not, the baby is coming.

Freya reaches out a finger and gently touches the body of the dragonfly still resting in her palm. Its wings flitter before falling still, the creature reluctant to leave its sanctuary. Freya lifts her hand to her mouth and gently blows beneath the bug so that finally, on the current of her breath, the dragonfly takes flight and buzzes out over the surface of the lake, vanishing into the powder blue sky.

‘Come on,’ says Kat, ‘we should help the others.’

As they gather down by the shores of the lake, half of the valley is in shadow, the other half still bathed in sunlight, as if a giant curtain waits to be drawn across the scene. Mac’s pigeons have been plucked and skewered and sit cooking on the grill alongside the fish. Ben strums quietly on his guitar. Carla sits behind Freya, brushing her hair while Mac watches on silently. Kat perches next to Simon on the fallen tree, the two of them drinking beer and chatting about the best fishing spots in the lake. The night is easy and informal until Simon stands and urges them all to gather round.

‘Uh-oh,’ laughs Ben. ‘Simon’s getting on his soapbox.’

‘You can laugh,’ says Simon, smiling, ‘but we’ve come through a really tough winter and I think a few words are in order.’

Kat watches him, the relaxed way he stands: his weight resting on one foot, a pale hip bone jutting above the waistband of his low-slung jeans, a bottle of beer cradled at his chest. He cuts a striking figure against the backdrop of the lake and she realises she has no idea what he is about to say.

‘We said we were going to give this place a year and we’re not far off. I think we should be proud of ourselves. We’ve proved we can do it. We’ve made a great start. Frankly, there’s nothing stopping us, as far as I can see, from doing another year . . . and another.’ Simon looks around at them all hopefully and Kat turns, trying to read the expressions on her friends’ faces.

Ben and Carla stare down into their beer bottles. Mac gazes out over the lake. Freya’s gaze is downcast. No one looks particularly enthusiastic about another year at the cottage. ‘Oh, come on, guys, don’t tell me you’re not up for it?’

Ben clears his throat. ‘First things first, mate, let’s finish this year, shall we?’

Carla nods her agreement and no one else says anything.

Simon shrugs, nonplussed. ‘OK. So be it.’ He swigs the last of his beer then chucks the bottle onto the grass at his feet and rubs his hands together briskly. ‘So, I realised that it just wouldn’t be a proper May Day celebration without a May Queen, right?’ He grins and Kat goes very still, watching as Simon leans across and produces a looping chain from behind the fallen tree, a pretty woven crown made from cowslips, wood anemones and pink honesty flowers gathered from around the cottage. She knows it’s ridiculous but as Simon holds the crown up in the faltering evening light, Kat knows she wants it more than anything she’s ever wanted in her life. She wants Simon to choose her. She wants him to pick her in front of the rest of them, to prove once and for all that
she
is his choice. ‘Not bad eh, for a clumsy fellow like me?’ He holds it aloft and looks at each of them in turn.

‘Honestly, mate,’ says Ben, letting out a loud belch, ‘you can forget the speech. Just plonk it here,’ he says, pointing to his own head. ‘I accept.’

They all laugh but Simon silences them. ‘No. There’s only one person who fits this crown . . . someone who symbolises the future of our little settlement.’ He smiles at Kat and she feels her breath catch at the back of her throat. ‘And that’s you,’ he says, turning to Freya.

Kat’s eyes dart to her sister. Of course. Freya. She tries to swallow down her disappointment as Freya glances from Simon to Kat, then back to Simon. Her face is a picture of horror. Simon walks over and places the floral crown on her sister’s head but Freya surprises them all by ripping it off and throwing it back at him. ‘I don’t want it.’

Simon looks confused. ‘But it’s for you.’

Kat sees Carla and Ben exchange a look. Mac sits up a little taller, leaning into the circle, his gaze fixed on Freya.

‘Give it to Kat,’ says Freya, and she pushes herself up awkwardly from the ground and makes to leave. ‘She’s the one who wants it.’

‘I don’t want it,’ Kat lies, her cheeks flushing red.

‘But it’s yours, Freya,’ says Simon. ‘I made it for you.’

Mac clears his throat. ‘You heard what she said: she doesn’t want it.’

‘What was that?’ Simon turns on Mac, his eyes ablaze. ‘Is there something you’d like to say?’

But Mac doesn’t get a chance to speak again. It is Freya who rounds on him, a fire burning in her eyes. ‘I told you, Simon. I. Don’t. Want. It. I don’t want
anything
from you.’

Simon studies her for a moment then breaks into a smile. ‘Come now, it’s just a bit of fun.’

‘No,’ she says, ‘it’s not. You know exactly what you’re doing, manipulating us all like this.’ She stands in front of them, a formidable sight, the swell of her belly jutting before her, her eyes glittering, her hair shining golden in the late evening sunshine. ‘I’m sick of this game. I’m sick of pretending that this is some incredible commune built on hard work and self-sufficiency. Can’t you all see it’s nothing but a pack of lies?’ Freya moves as if to leave the group.