Weyward — Chapter 9: Kate

9

KATE

Kate grabs her bag and runs to the car.

In the rear-view mirror, she sees that the birds – crows, she thinks – are still ascending, higher than the bone-yellow moon, the night shimmering with their cries. ‘Don’t look, don’t look,’ she says to herself, her breath misting in the chill air of the car. Her palms are slippery with sweat and she wipes them on her jeans so that she can turn the key in the ignition. The engine jolts into life and she reverses onto the road, heart pounding.

There are no streetlights, and she flicks on the high beams as she speeds down the winding lanes. Her breathing is shallow, her fingers tense as claws on the steering wheel. She half expects the headlights to reveal something menacing and otherworldly lurking around each corner.

She makes it to the slip road. If she keeps driving, she could be back in London by morning. But then, where would she go? Back to the flat?

Staring down the barrel of the motorway, she remembers what happened the

first time.

The first time she tried to leave.

It had been soon after they’d started living together. Another argument about her job in children’s publishing – he’d wanted her to quit, said she couldn’t deal with the stress. She’d had a panic attack at work, during the weekly acquisition meeting. Simon had picked her up and brought her home, then sat across from her in their living room with its glittering view, haloed by the sun like some terrible angel. His words crashed over her – she couldn’t cope, he didn’t have time to deal with this, there was no point in

her working when he earned so much. It was a useless job, anyway – what was the value in a bunch of women nattering about made-up stories for children? Besides, she obviously wasn’t very good at it – after all, she barely brought home a quarter of his salary.

It was this last statement that did it – that sparked some forgotten fire in her. And so she looked him in the eye and said what she hadn’t been able to tell the kindly colleagues who’d brought her tissues and a cup of tea, as she’d recovered at her desk.

Work wasn’t the problem; Simon was. His face darkened. For a moment he was still, and Kate’s breath caught in her throat. Without a word, he threw his cup of coffee at her. She turned her face away just in time, but the boiling liquid splashed her left arm, leaving a pink line of scalded skin.

It was the first time he had hurt her. Later, it would scar.

That night, he’d begged her not to go as she’d packed her things, telling her he was sorry, it would never happen again, he couldn’t live without her.

She had wavered, even then.

But when the taxi arrived, she got in. It was the thing to do, wasn’t it?

She was, supposedly, an educated, self-respecting woman. She couldn’t possibly stay.

The hotel – in Camden, she remembered; it had been all she’d been able to find (and afford) at such short notice – had been cold, with the musty stink of mice. The room overlooked the street and the window shook with every car that drove past. She lay sleepless until morning, watching the ceiling glow with the passing headlights, her phone vibrating with pleading texts, the burn on her arm throbbing.

She’d called in sick to work the next morning, spent the day wandering the markets, staring into the oily depths of the canal. Searching for resolve.

By the second night, she’d decided to leave him. But then came the voicemail. ‘Kate,’ he’d said, voice heavy with tears. ‘I am so, so sorry that we fought. Please, come back. I can’t live without you – I can’t … I need you, Kate. Please. I – I’ve taken some pills …’ And just like that, her resolve evaporated. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t let someone else die.

She phoned 999. As soon as she knew the paramedics were on their way, she called a taxi. On the drive back, she stared blankly out of the window as the neat terraced houses, gleaming dark in the rain, gave way to the images

from her childhood nightmares. Black wings, beating the air. The tarmac

glossy with blood.

I am the monster.

What if she was too late?

The yellow ambulance was parked on their street by the time she got there. She’d barely been able to breathe in the lift, had hated it for delaying her as it cranked slowly up the building.

The front door of their flat was open. Simon sat on the couch in his pyjamas, flanked by two female paramedics, pill bottles glinting on the coffee table in front of them. Unopened. Ice formed in her gut.

He hadn’t taken them at all. He’d lied.

She stared. He looked up at her and the tears fell freely down his face. ‘I’m so sorry, Kate,’ he said, shoulders shaking. ‘I was just … I was so scared that you would never come back.’ The paramedics didn’t notice the blistered skin on Kate’s arm. She walked them to the front door, promising she’d call 999 again if Simon displayed any more signs of suicidal ideation, agreeing not to leave him alone, to follow up on a referral to the local psychology team. Then she shut the door behind them carefully.

Simon got off the couch and walked towards her, until she felt his breath on the back of her neck. Together, they listened to the lift going down the shaft. ‘I’m so sorry that I left,’ said Kate, without turning around. ‘Please promise me you’ll never hurt yourself or do anything stupid again.’ Stupid.

She knew as soon as the word left her mouth that she’d made a mistake. ‘Stupid?’ Simon asked, keeping his voice low. He gripped the back of her neck tightly, before shoving her against the wall.

She resigned from the publishing house the next day. Surrendering not just her pay cheque and her sense of self, but her strongest link to the outside world. To the women who had made her feel valued, intelligent – like she was more than just his girlfriend, his plaything.

Kate switches off the indicator. She thinks of the cells knitting together inside her and is hit with a wave of nausea. If she goes back … if he finds out about the baby … he’ll never let her leave.

She turns the car around.

The next morning, Kate walks to the village for supplies.

The early spring air is cool against her skin, with a smell of damp leaves and things growing. Kate shuts the front door and swallows burst from the old oak in the front garden. She flinches, then watches them pinwheel through the blue sky while she collects herself. The village is just 2 miles away. The walk will be invigorating, she tells herself. Maybe she’ll even enjoy it.

She sets off down the lane, which is bordered by hedgerows fringed with unfamiliar white flowers that remind her of seafoam. There’s the squawk of a crow, and her heart quickens. She looks up, craning her neck until she grows dizzy. Nothing. Just branches patterning an empty sky, their tiny green leaves quivering in the breeze. She walks on, passing an old farmhouse with a sunken roof. Sheep bleat in the surrounding fields.

Crows Beck looks as though it’s barely changed for centuries: the only signs of modernisation are a BT phone box and a bus shelter. She passes the green, with its ancient well and another stone structure, a small hut with a heavy iron door. Perhaps it was the village jail, once upon a time. She shudders at the thought of being confined in such a small space, doom closing in.

Beyond the green is a cobbled square, hemmed in by buildings – a mishmash of stone and timber, some hunched beneath jutting Tudor gables.

A few of them are shops: there’s a greengrocer and a butcher, a post office.

A medical centre, too. In the distance she sees the spire of the church, glowing red in the sun.

She hesitates in front of the greengrocer. Nerves jostle in her stomach: she hasn’t been grocery shopping alone since … she can’t remember when.

Simon had arranged for their food to be delivered by a high-end grocery supplier on Sunday evenings. She tries to calm her rapid breathing with the thought that this time, she can buy anything she likes.

The trestle tables out the front of the shop heave with fresh produce.

Rows and rows of apples, the air thick with their woody scent. Carrots, half hidden beneath great green fronds, pale mounds of cabbages.

Inside, the only other customer is a woman – middle-aged and flame- haired, a pink sweater clashing luridly. Kate smiles as she shuffles past her, stifles a cough at the strong smell of patchouli oil. She smiles back and Kate turns quickly, scrutinising a box of cereal. She is relieved when the woman leaves the shop, singing out a cheery goodbye to the cashier.

Kate pulls things from the shelves: bread, butter, coffee. She looks down at her basket. Automatically, she has selected Simon’s favourite brand of coffee. She puts it back on the shelf, swaps it for another.

She mumbles hello to the raw-boned cashier. This, she knows, is an interaction she can’t avoid. ‘Not seen you here before,’ the woman says as she scans the jar of instant coffee. Kate sees that there is a single hair sprouting from her chin, and suddenly doesn’t know where to look. Her skin prickles. She feels horribly conscious of what she’s wearing: her top and trousers too tight, too revealing. Simon had liked her to be on display like this. Exposed. ‘Um – I’ve just moved,’ says Kate. ‘From London.’ The woman frowns, so Kate explains that she’s inherited a cottage from a relative. ‘Oh, you mean Weyward Cottage? Violet Ayres’ place?’ ‘Yes – I’m her great-niece.’ ‘Didn’t know she had any family living,’ the cashier says. ‘Thought all the Ayreses and Weywards were gone. Save the old viscount of course, losing his marbles up at the big house.’ ‘Not me,’ says Kate, offering a tight smile. ‘I’m an Ayres. Sorry – Weywards, did you say? I didn’t realise it was a family name. I thought it was just the name of the cottage.’ ‘It was, and an old one, too,’ she says, inspecting the carton of milk. ‘Went back centuries, that name did.’ The cashier seems to think the Ayreses and the Weywards are related in some way. She must have it wrong. Aunt Violet had been an Ayres, too, and born in Orton Hall. She would have bought Weyward Cottage after she left

home. After she’d been disowned. ‘Card or cash?’ ‘Cash.’ Kate feels the woman’s eyes on her as she pulls notes from a hole in the lining of her handbag. Again, she has the feeling of being exposed.

She flushes, wondering if it’s obvious. That she’s running away from something. Someone. ‘You’ll be all right, pet,’ says the cashier now, as if she has seen Kate’s thoughts through her skull. She hands over the change. ‘It’s in your blood, after all.’ Walking back to the cottage, Kate wonders what she meant.

Kate looks everywhere for Violet’s papers, for some connection to the Weywards. In the drawers of the bedside table, inside the cavernous wardrobe. There, she pauses for a moment, inhaling the scent of mothballs and lavender. Her great-aunt’s clothes are odd; the sort of things one might find in a charity shop – kaftans, linen tunics, a beaded cape with the gunmetal sheen of a beetle’s shell. Chunky necklaces cascade down the inside of the door, clinking against an age-spotted mirror.

She can’t stop looking at the cape, at the way it catches the light.

Tentatively she brushes it with her fingertips, the glass beads cool against her skin. She plucks it from its hanger and slips it around her shoulders. In the mirror she looks different: the cape’s dark glitter brings out something in her eyes, a hardness she doesn’t recognise.

Shame flushes her cheeks. She’s acting like a child playing dress-up. She takes off the cape, hurriedly shoving it back on its hanger. Shutting the wardrobe doors, she catches another glimpse of herself in the mirror. There she is: clad in the clothes he has chosen. Her hair, bleached and perfectly layered, just the way he likes. The woman with the hardness in her eyes is gone.

She looks under Aunt Violet’s bed. Battered hatboxes yield sketchbooks, their mottled pages filled with annotated drawings of butterflies, beetles and – she grimaces – tarantulas. A heavy, square object wrapped in muslin turns out not to be a photo album, as she suspected, but a crumbling flank of stone. Turning it over, she sees the striated red imprint of a scorpion.

A folder pokes out from under one of the boxes. Grunting, she yanks it free.

The cover is faded and furred with dust, but the papers inside are neatly ordered: bank statements; utility bills. There are several old passports, their yellowed pages crowded with stamps. She flips through one from the 1960s, recording visits to Costa Rica, Nepal, Morocco.

There’s something familiar about the sepia-coloured photograph on the first page; about the young woman with dark waves of hair and wide- spaced eyes, the smudge of a birthmark on her forehead. She’s never seen any pictures of her great-aunt as a young woman before, and she shivers as she places the feeling of recognition. In the picture, Aunt Violet looks like … her. Kate.

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