Coming Home

Vincent continued to stare moodily into the fire’s embers as Tara and I mounted the stairs side by side. I was worried about leaving him down there to brood, and obviously so was Tara because when we reached the dark landing she turned to face me.

‘He misses his wife and daughter terribly,’ she confided. ‘He never says anything, but I’m sure that’s why he makes himself scarce whenever he can. Work is just an excuse to run away without actually leaving us.’

I noticed her use of the word ‘us’ with a sinking heart. It reminded me that I had no business feeling anything other than gratitude towards Vincent. ‘Do you think he’ll ever be able to move on?’

‘I don’t know.’ Tara wiped a hand over her tired eyes. ‘I wouldn’t have said he was the sort of man to brood, but grief does funny things to people.’

We walked down the corridor together, paused outside Jadie’s room to check that she was sleeping soundly and said good night outside my room. Holding the candle in front of me, I pushed open the door and slipped inside.

It didn’t take me long to jump between the icy sheets. Once in bed I blew out the flame and stared into the pitch-darkness, going over the evening in my mind. First there had been the episode in the shower…had I really just fainted and dreamed the near drowning? And what had happened between Vincent and Maria next door? Had Maria really been suggesting that Vincent had somehow been to blame for his wife’s sudden departure? Or had I merely been responding to the unsettling timing of the power cut, the effects of quite a large quantity of good wine and the heady incense-filled atmosphere?

As I closed my eyes and drifted into sleep I really wasn’t quite sure.

It was still dark when I awoke. And try as I might I couldn’t get back to sleep. My mind seemed filled with images of people and places I didn’t recognise, and I had no idea if the hazy figures that came and went in my mind’s eye were characters from my real life or whether I was conjuring imaginary pictures of Cheryl and Amber in my head. After twenty minutes of tossing and turning I decided to go downstairs for a glass of milk. Pulling on the borrowed dressing gown, I groped for the matches and lit the candle again. Then I made my way out onto the landing, checking first that the light switch on the wall still wasn’t responding, and down the dark stairs.

The kitchen was of course in blackness. The squat candle provided only a small circle of light in my immediate vicinity and as I rested it down on the kitchen table to free up my hands for the fridge door, I had the eerie feeling that someone was in the room with me. I peered into the darkness without moving a muscle. I began to wonder if I had imagined it, but then the sound of someone’s steady breathing caused an involuntarily squeal to erupt from my throat. The sound must have startled the breather because a male voice swore in fright and a figure leaped to his feet. Suddenly Vincent and I were staring at one another in the candlelight.

‘Christ, you nearly gave me a heart attack…I thought you were a ghost!’

‘Vincent?’

‘Kate? What are you doing down here?’ He turned to the table and switched on a torch, shining it in my face. Blinking, I pushed the torch away from me so that the beam swung out across the table and struck the opposite wall. All I could make out was his dark form standing before me, but where the torchlight illuminated the table I could see a photo album lying open.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ I murmured

‘What time is it? I must have nodded off.’

‘It’s just past two.’

I glanced across at the album again and shivered. ‘It’s freezing in here.’

‘I know; the boiler is out. I just hope Tara put enough covers on Jadie’s bed.’

‘I’m sure she will have done.’ I pulled the dressing gown more tightly round me. ‘She seems very protective of her.’

‘Tara’s a saint,’ Vincent agreed. ‘We couldn’t have managed without her.’

He fell silent and I yawned, rubbing my eyes. ‘I came down to get a glass of milk. I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Of course not.’ He opened the fridge door and took out a milk carton, handing the torch to me so he could use both hands to fetch a couple of glasses from the cupboard. I sat down at the table, playing the torch over the album so I could see the pictures of a pretty dark-headed woman holding a toddler. I recognised Vincent in one or two of the photos—a younger more carefree Vincent with his arm round the woman’s shoulders, his eyes beaming down at the child with pride.

He reached across and snapped the album shut, and as I looked at him in the torch beam I thought again how handsome he was, but shook the thought away, trying to concentrate on keeping my heart from pounding.

‘I did love my wife, you know,’ he said softly as he cupped his hands round his glass. ‘Maria made it sound as if I’d been a bad husband, and maybe I worked too hard and stayed away from Cheryl too much after finding out that Amber was so sick, but I always loved her, right up until the end.’

I wasn’t sure how to respond. I wondered if it was more that Jadie was suddenly talking again and that Amber’s name had at last been openly mentioned, rather than Maria’s digs that had jolted him to begin this soul searching. Maybe it had pierced the protective wall he had built round himself and made him think…what if?

I peered tentatively into his face through the gloom. ‘Have you seen a counsellor or anyone since you lost Amber?’

He shook his head, suddenly angry. ‘What good could a counsellor do? He couldn’t bring them back, could he?’

‘Them?’ I queried, puzzled until I realised he must be referring to his wife’s abandonment as well as to Amber’s death.

He seemed rattled. ‘I meant Amber. No one can bring her back, can they, so what’s the point in seeing some dogooder who didn’t know her?’ He raised his voice to a loud hiss. ‘No one knows what it’s like, waking up every morning and just for the briefest fraction of a second thinking everything is as it was: your child is safely asleep in her bed, your wife is lying next to you; that the world hasn’t turned upside down and shat all over you.’ Even in the dim torchlight I could see the anger and hurt in his eyes. ‘I was supposed to be able to take care of them, for God’s sake! I was the father, the husband, I was meant to make everything all right again and I couldn’t do anything to help them.’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know for sure if I even have a child or a husband somewhere myself…’ The thought caused me a moment of panic, ‘…but I do know that you can’t cope with that sort of loss on your own. You need professional help.’

‘You sound just like Tara,’ he sighed, the anger evaporating as quickly as it had come. ‘She tried to get us to see that brother of hers when Amber…you know. He’s some sort of psychoanalyst, but Cheryl just shut everyone out and then when it all became too much, she left me too. I need to ask them to forgive me.’ Judging by the tremor in his voice I realised he was close to losing the tenuous grip he’d kept on his emotions for the past two years. ‘I wish with all my heart that I could have Amber back for just a moment to tell her how sorry I am that I couldn’t keep her safe.’

He fell silent but I judged from his ragged breathing that he was still battling to keep his emotions in check.

‘When Maria asked me if I had ever felt the presence of a ghost in this house of ours I admit I did consider the possibility of the property being haunted. I found myself wondering—hoping even—that Maria had sensed the spirit of my little girl.’ He uttered the words so quietly I could barely hear him.

I was surprised and a little uneasy at his strange admission. Up until then I’d thought of Vincent as a bit of a pragmatist.

Leaning forward, I found my hand resting lightly against his as it now lay by his glass on the table. All at once I felt Vincent’s fingers encircling mine and he lifted my hand to his face so that my knuckles rested against his lips. Closing his eyes, he pressed his mouth to my hand.

‘I need forgiveness, Kate,’ he mumbled. ‘I wasn’t there for my daughter when she needed me most and I can’t bear the fact that it is too late to do anything to change that.’

‘Maybe it’s too late for Amber,’ I whispered, holding my hand very still, ‘but you’ve been given another chance with Jadie. You still have your other little girl.’

He raised tortured eyes to mine and gazed at me for a long moment. Then, as if registering for the first time that he was touching me, he released my hand abruptly and gave a curt nod. Before I could say anything else he had picked up the torch and walked quietly from the room, leaving me sitting alone in a stranger’s kitchen in virtual darkness in the middle of a snowy night.

Chapter Twelve (#ulink_60e0ad3d-68a3-5f5e-a83c-2c9614333453)

Once upstairs and back in the warmth of my bed I lay awake for a long time thinking about what Vincent had said to me. I wondered if he’d unburdened himself to me because I was an outsider, in much the same way as Jadie had when she’d chosen to break her self-imposed silence with me two days before. I wished Vincent could have realised how a counsellor might help him, if only he would go and seek that help. I was prepared to listen, but I wasn’t qualified to advise. I was merely a passing stranger, who had landed in their midst by chance.

At least that’s what I tried to tell myself as I slipped at last into an uneasy sleep.

In the morning it was snowing heavily again. I went downstairs to find Tara furiously trying to light the fire in the sitting room. I watched as she struck match after match while Jadie looked on from where she sat huddled on the couch.

‘Here, let me try.’ Taking the matches from Tara I kneeled next to her at the hearth. I struck a match and it flared easily, and I held it quickly to the torn newspaper she had wrapped round some kindling and watched as the small flame grew. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘It’s freezing, that’s what the ruddy matter is.’ I noticed she’d got her coat on over yesterday’s jeans and sweater, and yet her lips were still blue with cold. ‘We need to keep Jadie warm and I can’t even boil a kettle to make her a hot drink.’

I glanced round at Jadie, who was watching us quietly, swathed in blankets. She did seem even paler than usual and a shiver of dread ran through me. If this child was too delicate even to play outside in the snow, she was going to be in trouble living in an old house that was quickly growing damp and bitingly cold. I realised that Tara’s intense, almost fanatical concern for the child was horribly infectious.

‘Where’s Vincent?’

‘He’s not here. I went to speak to him about Jadie and I couldn’t find him anywhere.’ Her voice was anxious. ‘I can’t understand it.’

The fire was growing now as little tongues of flame licked at the kindling and took hold, warming the pieces of wood Tara had dotted about the top of the fire until they too began to smoulder.

‘Come and sit on the rug in front of the fire,’ Tara urged to Jadie. ‘See if we can get you warmed up.’

We lifted Jadie across between us to save having to unwrap her from her bulky layers and she gave an ominous chesty cough as she moved.

‘I’ve only just finished doing her physical therapy.’ Tara crouched anxiously beside Jadie, vigorously rubbing her hands. ‘She’s so bunged up this morning.’