Weyward — Chapter 36: Kate

36

KATE

Kate is sitting on the floor in the bedroom when her phone rings.

She has been making a mobile for the baby, using treasures she’s collected on her walks around the area. An oak leaf of translucent amber; the shiny whorl of a snail’s abandoned shell. The white-speckled crow’s feather she found in the mug on the kitchen windowsill when she first arrived. All of these things she threads onto fishing wire attached to a frame made of twigs, tied together with green ribbon.

Her phone is in the kitchen, and she’s been sitting for so long that her foot has fallen asleep. She stumbles down the corridor. By the time she reaches the other room, she’s missed the call, but the ringing starts up again, the vibrations harsh against the wooden table.

‘Hi, Mum,’ she answers. ‘Darling. How are you?’ ‘Good – I’m just finishing up the mobile, the one I was telling you about the other day.’ ‘It sounds beautiful. How are you getting on with it all? Have you got everything you need?’ The cottage is crammed with baby paraphernalia: the kitchen table hidden under piles of tiny vests and muslin squares, soft as gossamer. Emily has given her a Moses crib and a car seat; donated by a niece. ‘I think so. Everything but a buggy.’ She sighs. She’s looked everywhere for one online, but even the most basic model costs hundreds of pounds. And she can’t find a second-hand one advertised nearby: not even Emily’s niece has been able to help, having sold hers years ago.

Perhaps she should buy one of those slings, strap the baby to her front.

Maybe she could even make one. At least that way she’ll be able to take her out for walks. Show her the beck, now frozen under a sheen of ice. The trees with their white coats of snow. ‘You know, I’ve been thinking,’ her mother is saying. ‘Perhaps I could buy you one. As a sort of early Christmas present.’ ‘Mum. You don’t have to do that. You’re already spending so much money on flights …’ Her mother is coming in two weeks, so that she can be with Kate for the birth. It will be the first time they have seen each other in years.

‘But I want to. Please, let me.’ ‘I don’t want you going to any hassle.’ ‘Well, how about I just transfer you some money? And then you can pick

one yourself.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘Thanks, Mum.’ ‘I love you, Kate.’ She blinks away the sting of tears. When did they last say this to each other? Not since Kate was a teenager. It was her fault: she never said it back. She couldn’t bear the weight of it, this love she didn’t deserve. But now the words are there, familiar shapes in her mouth. ‘I love you too, Mum.’

The buggy she picks is green, with a segmented hood that reminds her of a caterpillar. She smiles at the thought of her daughter nestled inside. Though part of her wishes she could stay for longer, warm and safe in her womb.

Sharing everything, even the blood that beats in their veins. And yet, she can’t wait to hold her in her arms, breathe her scent, stroke her tiny fingers.

She cradles her stomach with one hand as she orders the buggy. Taps in her address, the number of her new debit card. Her email address, for the receipt.

She smiles when the purchase is complete. The kettle is singing, and she is slow as she moves towards it, her body curving under the weight of her stomach.

As she sips her tea, she looks out of the window, watching the crows in the sycamore tree. Their dark, liquid movements against the white snow.

Her mug slips from her hands, smashes onto the floor.

The email.

She’d used her old email address. The one linked to her iPhone.

Simon has her iPhone. He’s going to see it.

She scrabbles for the Motorola, blood roaring. Her fingers shake as she

opens a new browser, brings up Gmail.

Please God, no.

The page won’t load. She refreshes it, again and again.

Finally, it loads. There’s the confirmation email – it’s got her address, her new phone number, everything. Even a graphic of a smiling baby.

She deletes it. Stands for a moment, a chill spreading through her veins.

If he’s seen this … then he knows about the baby.

And he knows where to find her.

Leaning over the kitchen sink, she splashes water onto her face. The icy shock of it calms her.

How long did the email sit in her inbox – three minutes? It’s – what – Tuesday, 2 p.m. The middle of the workday. He won’t have seen it. She’s caught it in time.

It’s OK. He’s doesn’t know where she is.

She looks down. ‘Don’t worry,’ she says to her stomach. ‘I won’t let him anywhere near you.’

Outside, there’s that same, unsettling stillness from the previous night. She doesn’t like the look of the clouds – the way they hang low and grey in the sky. There is something ominous about it.

She sweats under her layers as she heaves herself into the car. The seat is as far back as it can go, her hands barely reaching the steering wheel.

Her heart races as she turns onto the A66, passing the snow-blanketed fields. In the distance, the peaks of the mountains spark silver.

She takes a deep breath, tries to calm herself. She is safe. The baby is safe.

For now, she just needs to focus on driving.

She’s going to see Frederick at his nursing home in Beckside. Really, she’s not sure what she expects: he barely made any sense last time she saw him, all those months ago at Orton Hall. Guilt twinges in her stomach at the memory. She should have told someone – those dead insects everywhere,

the room he’d been living in with its animal scent … and Frederick himself.

She shudders at the memory of those eyes. At their emptiness. And yet. She

can’t quite bring herself to pity him.

Violet’s words come back to her.

I am plagued by memories of it.

She has an image of him barricaded in that festering study while insects swarm outside, undulating through the corridors of the Hall like one great, glistening snake.

And the strange thing he said to her, just before she left.

She had released me at last.

There had been thousands and thousands of the things, according to the newspaper article. The insects normally frequent aquatic environments and rarely infest dwellings. This wasn’t some natural phenomenon.

A plague for a plague.

Kate thinks she knows what happened. But she needs to be sure.

The nursing home – Ivy Gate – doesn’t exactly live up to its name. The imposing iron gate is devoid of all greenery. Even from a distance, the buildings have an institutional look – something about the slate grey stone, the narrowness of the windows. ‘Ivy Gate,’ a curt voice answers the intercom at the entrance. ‘Hello,’ she says. ‘I’m … I’m here to see a relative – Frederick Ayres?’ ‘Better be quick about it,’ says the voice, with an impatient sigh. ‘Visiting hours are coming to a close.’ She is directed to the common room – or, according to a sign on the door, the ‘Scafell Room’ – which is decorated in insipid peach; landscapes on the walls the only nod to its alpine name. Kate’s stomach turns at the smell – a combination of cooking oil, bleach and, faintly, urine. Frederick is in the corner, huddled in a wheelchair far away from the other residents. As she approaches, she realises that he is asleep: his head lolls to one side, eyeballs flickering beneath almost translucent lids.

For a moment, she wonders if she should just leave, come back some other time. But, she knows, there may not be another time – the baby will be here soon, passing into the world just as Frederick is fading out of it.

This could be her only chance to get some answers.

She lowers herself into the chair next to his, leans forward. ‘Hello?’ she says softly. ‘Frederick?’

Slowly, his eyes open. At first, they look clouded, unfocused, but then they widen in horror. She touches the lapel of her jacket, remembering his previous reaction to the bee brooch – but it’s not there, it’s in her pocket.

Then she realises. He’s looking at her necklace. Aunt Violet’s necklace.

He arches back in her chair and – Kate’s heart stops – screams. ‘Get away!’ he shrieks, spittle flying towards her. ‘You’re supposed to be gone!’ An orderly comes running – young, cheeks bright with acne, peach scrubs loose on his thin frame. ‘There, there, Freddie, old mate,’ he says. ‘Let’s take you back to your room.’ He glares at Kate as he steers Frederick’s wheelchair into the corridor. ‘What’d you do, to upset him like that?’ The orderly throws over his shoulder. ‘I – nothing,’ she says, still stunned by Frederick’s outburst. ‘Hold on, are you that woman he’s always talking about? Valerie, or

something?’ ‘Violet?’ ‘That’s right. Look, I don’t know what happened between you two, but he’s not stopped going on about you since he got here. What are you, his

granddaughter?’ ‘No, I—’ ‘So you’re not even family. Honestly, miss, I think you should go. It’s Saturday. Visiting hours end at 4 p.m. anyway.’ Kate can hear the orderly reassuring Frederick as he is wheeled away. ‘You’re all right, mate. Just a little scare.’ ‘But it was her.’ She hears him take a great, shuddering breath. ‘She’s the one who sent them. The one who sent the insects.’

Fresh snow begins to fall as Kate drives home from Ivy Gate.

She’s so distracted that she stalls the car twice. Luckily, there’s barely any traffic in the valley. Both times, before she manages to get the car started again, panic snakes its way up through her body, gaining intensity as it passes through her stomach, her heart, her throat.

He thinks Violet was responsible for the infestation.

She remembers something else he said, when she went to Orton Hall.

That the insects had died last August.

Just like Violet.

It is snowing harder now, the air so thick with it that she can barely see the road. The radio sputters with static, and she turns up the sound to catch the weather forecast. ‘Heavy snowfall …’ a man is saying. ‘Disruption while travelling …’ The signal is lost.

In her gut, panic blooms. She shouldn’t have come. What if she’s put the baby in danger?

She is driving past the woods, the trees sugared with ice. The woods.

Where she’d felt such unease, before her unsettling visit to Orton Hall. Fear bubbles in her chest, the steering wheel suddenly slick under her hands. She remembers the claustrophobia of those tightly packed trees, the way they’d blocked out the light.

Kate forces herself to look straight ahead, at the reflective lines of the road curving ahead of her, away from the wood, disappearing into a haze of white. The wind roars. She needs to turn the fog lights on so that she can see better, but in her terror, she can’t remember how. Her fingers slip and fumble on the wheel and the dashboard, and she takes her eyes off the road briefly. There. She’s found the button. She lifts her eyes back to the road and the twin beams illuminate the remains of an animal – matted, bloodied fur; pale limbs – strewn across the road. The blood impossibly bright against the snow.

She screams. She loses control of the wheel. The car careens forward, and the noise of the trees scraping against the roof and smacking the

windshield is deafening.

Everything goes white.

Kate’s heart pounds in her chest. It takes her a moment to realise that she has crashed into the woods, that the front seat of the car is littered with ice, with glass from the windscreen.

The wind howls through the jagged edges of the windscreen. Kate

shivers. She is so cold.

Oh God. The baby.

She places her hands over her stomach, willing her child to show her

some sign of life.

Please. Kick. Let me know you’re OK.

But there is nothing.

She needs to get help. Wincing at a bolt of pain in her shoulder, she twists to reach for her phone on the passenger seat. Please God, don’t let it be broken.

She exhales with relief when she sees that the screen is intact. Relief turns to horror when, unlocking it, she sees only one bar of reception: it

flickers for a moment, then disappears.

Shit.

She thinks she’s about 5 miles from the cottage: the road loops around the fells in long, lazy circles, adding extra distance. The direct route, across the fells, is shorter. Two miles, no more, she thinks.

At this hour, while the light dims in the sky, the woods seem so black and thick that it feels as if the car has been swallowed up by a beast and has come to rest in its ribcage. She imagines the dark stretch of trees, a spine running across the land.

She could wait by the side of the road, see if someone drives past. Then she remembers how quiet it is here, how she hasn’t seen a single other car for the entire journey back from Ivy Gate. And no one is going to take to the roads in a blizzard. She could be waiting till morning. It’s already so cold in the car with the broken windscreen. People die of exposure in situations like this, don’t they?

She doesn’t have a choice. If she wants to get home before night falls, she’ll have to walk.

She pushes the car door open, scraping against branches, gasping as the cold hits her.

Snowflakes sting her face as she makes her way back to the road, stumbling over icy tree roots and clogs of mud. The tarmac is dusted white.

There is the body of the animal – it is a hare, she sees now – splayed out and flattened. She can’t take the road, not unless she wants to risk sharing its fate.

She turns back to the woods, the leaves hissing with the wind.

There’s only one way home.

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