Before All Else Read online

  “OK. Why not?” Where’s the harm? She didn’t want to show herself up as cheap by pre-judging the situation.

  At what point did she became culpable? At what point did the situation change, take on a totally different attitude? When she decided the slowly defrosting fish could take its chances? When he held her wrist, that’s when.

  They’d arranged to meet for a drink later that evening.

  By ten o’clock, she was on her back having sex.

  She met him again, by arrangement, two weeks later. It was exactly the same routine. A hard fuck. He was putting himself through his paces. 98…99…100 and turn. One…two…three… Sweat collected in his clavicle. She watched dispassionately as it pooled. What team did he say he supported? He gripped the headboard with both hands and arched his back, staring fixedly at the wall as he came. She wondered about the other half of the bottle of baby oil.

  “Shall I see you home?”

  “No. Really. Don’t bother. Thank you.”

  As she got out of bed, she noticed a small rusty patch on the bottom sheet. It was her. She was either getting too old or too tender for sex with a stranger. She wouldn’t even mention it. Let him deal with it. Sad thought, though. Her walls were getting thinner. Her colours were fading.

  So it is in Henry’s arms that she lies at night. For the past is safe, unchanging, guaranteed.

  When Henry made love to her, he covered her like he was protecting her from an exploding bomb. He was an exploding bomb. She loved the size of him, the weight of him, the sheer bulk of her man. But he could pack a punch – a moment’s rapture knocked off kilter by a pressing elbow, the compressions and bruises and awkward tilts of making love with a big and passionate and inventive man.

  She wishes she could remember all the times they had sex. But then again, she doesn’t. The greater the store of memories, the more there is to miss.

  But there are the times she keeps on the top shelf of her memory.

  The first time. On his office floor.

  On their wedding day.

  Saturday nights, in front of the log fire.

  Sunday mornings, among the crumpled newspapers and toast crumbs.

  The time he turned her over and pressed her face into the pillow.

  But she can’t recall the last time. How on earth was she to know it was going to be the last time? No sense of it being a valedictory fuck. A ‘so long, farewell, thanks for all the good times’ one. Or even, ‘I will love you forever and take your heart with me’. So, was it a Tuesday – hey, what about it, girl, it’s been a couple of days? A Friday – God, I think I’ve drunk too much but let’s give it a go? Was there a deep, lasting connection as they looked into each other’s eyes, bonded, one on one, forever? Or had she felt like an old nag that had been mistakenly entered for the Epsom Derby?

  One thing was for sure though. Every night during their time together he pulled her to him, pulled her into the curve of his body and held her tight until they both fell asleep.

  Perfect.

  Henry always said she was steadfast, irreproachable. Those were his words. They were hard words but she tried her best to deserve them. More than anything, that’s what she wanted to be as Henry’s widow. Steadfast and irreproachable. But she had failed. She had failed, even as Henry’s wife.

  The sense of disloyalty was not just to do with Supermarket Man. If she could forgive herself that, then so might Henry if that wasn’t a totally daft notion given that she’d met Supermarket Man long after Henry had died. No, it goes far deeper than that. Right to the spot that Mandy accesses with each piercing, quizzical look. Right to the spot where she had to make the hardest decision of her life. Right to the spot where she broke faith with Henry, broke faith in his ability to love her and cherish her even in the long years after his death.

  “You’d think you’d somehow be protected from crazy stuff happening at a time like this.”

  Six years ago, Dr Bam looked at her from his standpoint of bitter experience. There was, nonetheless, a gentleness in his eyes. “I’m afraid nothing gives us immunity. The universe just doesn’t work that way.” Cecily shrugged and took his proffered letter of referral. “It is entirely your decision, of course, but my advice would be at least go and have a chat. I’m sorry to say this, Mrs Marchant, but your age doesn’t work in your favour and with everything you’ve got going on at this time…” He left the rest hanging in the air, together with the unspoken thought that, of those who entered the clinic’s doors, very few left ‘unburdened’.

  So, that was it, she thought, on the drive home from the surgery. Dr Bam had become her moral arbiter. She’d almost missed the signs, put the fatigue down to caring for Henry, the loss of appetite to the ever-present anxiety, her breasts feeling like they’d been hit by wet sandbags and a deep down yearning ache to change-of-life stuff.

  Standing in the chemist’s the previous week, waiting for Henry’s steroids and stomach pills, the sudden thought that she might be pregnant nearly folded her in two. Someone had helped her to a seat and offered a glass of water.

  Shakily she took Henry’s medication and paid for the kit. Later that evening, after she’d helped Henry to bed, she took the test into the downstairs loo. There was his two-day-old newspaper leaning against the frosted window, a scallop shell that served as an ash tray and a scrunched-up cigarette packet on the window sill. The room was cold, a harsh light from the brash bulb reflected off the white tiles. Specks of fag ash dusted the seat where Henry had emptied the ash tray into the loo. She knew she ought to do the test early in the morning but maybe if she skewed the test she might buck the result.

  No such luck. She was pregnant.

  That awful discovery coincided with Henry’s prognosis. He had nine months to live. How could she possibly deal with anything else? That was the thing that made everybody gasp in pain and bewilderment. She would have to deal with any other underlying issue herself.

  And that is when the grotesque dummy, its oversized foetal head, its shiny, waxy skin, its open, screaming mouth moved in, to remind her of her loss of faith. Now, instead of holding Henry’s growing child in her arms, she sits alone in her empty house. And by all accounts, Mandy fares no better. Does she feel the same pangs of guilt when she sees Cecily? Is Cecily her reminder of how different things might have been? As Mandy is to her, is she Mandy’s prowling, untrustworthy conscience? She’d even given the grotesque haunting creature a name – Vernix.

  Maybe she needs to talk to someone. Heave off the crushing burden from her back, drop it onto the floor, walk away from it, leave it. How simple and how beguiling. Maybe she could talk to Tilly or Amelia. Which one would understand? But wasn’t there a danger that that might change things? With the secret out there, would she somehow be diminished, lose rank? Bright daylight might suck the air from the dummy’s mouth, remove the malevolent gleam from its eye, stop its rattling chatter. It might defy Mandy’s menace. But confession might also rob her of her sisters’ respect. Could she take that risk?

  Tilly had sent a text a couple of days ago. “Checking out college for Lizzie. Can we stay?”

  “Doh! Need you ask? Who? When?”

  “Me, Melly, Lizzie. Midday.”

  “Lovely!”

  They arrive as one hectic, chaotic unit, reaching their arms through the front doorway to pull Cecily into strong, repeated hugs. They bring with them laughter, noise, fun. “We’ve got enough luggage here for a cruise.”

  “We’ve brought Australian Crunchies.”

  “Bliss. Come on in. You’re in your own rooms. Lizzie, I’ve put you in the spare room. I’ll give you a hand up with your cases and then we can catch up.”

  As Cecily brews coffee in the kitchen, she listens to the roar of feet on the floorboards above. The house is alive again. They are like the pet ducks they had in the garden as children. “Four bodies, one brain,” Mother used to say
as the Indian Runners hurriedly and randomly switched from one direction to another and then to another. How can she offer that comparison without it sounding like she is insulting her sisters and niece? Tilly would know. If Tilly said that they were marauding about like a gaggle of ducks, Amelia would laugh and agree, getting it straight away. Lizzie would laugh because her Mum and her two giddy aunts were laughing. Cecily could say it and she knows it would just come out too loaded with anxiety and awkwardness to be funny.

  Do other sisters have the same stresses? Do they worry, individually, they are too much of this and not enough of that? That the others have got the secret, magical ingredient, whatever it is? Are there alliances, jealousies, inadequacies in every family? Or is she being just far too edgy? Shouldn’t she just get on and enjoy their company?

  “Coffee’s ready,” she shouts from the bottom of the stairs.

  “Great.”

  “Coming.”

  “Bliss, sis!”

  She stands close to the newel post as, collectively, they charge down the stairs and into the kitchen. “Do you remember those ducks we used to have?” But nobody hears her. They are already on their way to pouring the thick oily coffee and carving up the crisped rice and coconut squares covered in dark glossy chocolate icing that had been Mother’s recipe.

  *

  They sit dabbing the last of the crumbs and tilting the last of the coffee. There is an air of expectation around the table.

  “We’ve got something to tell you,” says Tilly, Cecily looking at her with concern.

  “Good or bad?” she asks quickly.

  “Good. On the whole.” Lizzie looks up sharply. “Yes. Good. Definitely good.”

  “Go on then.”

  “Do you want to tell Aunt Cecily?” Tilly asked Lizzie.

  “No, you say.”

  “Right. Well. The thing is. Lizzie is pregnant.”

  Cecily doesn’t know what to say. Lizzie sits stock still with her hands in her lap, giving no clues as to how she wants her aunt to react.

  “Right. That’s…that’s… Sorry. I’m at a loss what to say. But it’s good news, right?”

  “No, it is good news, Aunty Cecily, it just takes a bit of getting used to.”

  “Of course, my darling. But if you’re happy then we’re all happy. Aren’t we?” Cecily looks round at her sisters for confirmation.

  “The thing is,” continues Tilly, “Lizzie is pleased. We are all pleased. But there’s one big complication. Nothing medical or anything like that. Lizzie is doing really well. The baby’s fine. It’s just that she really shouldn’t stay at home. With the sheep. Risk of spontaneous miscarriage if she’s around sheep. Especially at lambing time. And mine have already gone to the tup. So, we’re already on for next season.”

  “Tell me you’re not going back to that caravan. Or living with that…” She wants to call him a dickhead but, fearing that she might be insulting the father of her future grand-nephew or grand-niece, settles for, “bloke?”

  “No, that’s all over,” Lizzie mutters from beneath her fringe.

  “We were wondering whether you might let Lizzie come here.” Tilly puts her arm round her daughter’s shoulders and pulls her close. They both look at Cecily with the same clearwater eyes. “The baby’s due end of January. She can defer her return to college. It would only be for a few months. Know it’s a massive ask, but she, they, can come back to the farm in the spring. It’s just that you’ve always said that this house and you are here for the family.” Cecily puts her hand on Tilly’s to slow the rapid rattle of words. “Think about it?”

  “No need.”

  “Sure?”

  “Sure.” Cecily looks at her dear sister’s face now flooding with tears. She would miss out on this most rare and exquisite time with Lizzie, but she was entrusting Cecily to be her daughter’s helpmate. How could she ever doubt that Tilly loves her?

  What an amazing time lay ahead.

  She looks up the table at Amelia, who is smiling, but as one who is leaving.

  Later that afternoon, they all sit out in the garden. Seed pods are closing round the bright gaudy shades of summer. Gladioli, lupins, foxgloves and hollyhocks are putting their costumes away for another season. In their place, crocosmia waves its orange bills at the reddening mountain ash and the baby-fist apples in the orchard. The sun is harvest hot. Trueman emits a groan of contentment from underneath Cecily’s deckchair. Tilly is playing games on her phone in the next deckchair.

  “Listen, Tils. There’s something I need to tell you. It’s been burning my mind for such a long time.” Tilly puts her phone back in her jeans pocket and turns her full attention on Cecily.

  “Go on.”

  “I don’t really know why I have to tell you. It doesn’t affect anybody but me. It doesn’t change anything. It’s just that I really, really have to tell somebody. It’s too much to carry just on my own. When you said you were all coming down today, I’d made up my mind that I would tell you.”

  Even as she speaks, Cecily is still undecided whether to tell her sisters about the abortion. If she confesses, it might lessen the pressure inside her heart. But it might taint the day. Could she bear to be the brunt of their disapproval? No. She can’t. She loves them dearly but knows that when Tilly and Amelia fight, they fight with sharp blades.

  Tilly is silent.

  “And then we have Lizzie’s wonderful news.” Cecily looks out into the garden.

  Tilly nods, still silent, holding out her hand to take Cecily’s.

  Cecily takes a moment.

  Steadfast and irreproachable.

  Maybe with Lizzie’s baby on its way, the mistakes and regrets and fuck-ups of the previous generation, and the one before it, would no longer matter. This could be a fresh start. She could forgive herself. It could all just slip away. No longer important. No longer relevant. Powerless. Hidden. Buried. Out of sight.

  Lizzie and Amelia, so similar to each other, are sitting on upturned logs, knees and lower legs flattened to the ground, soles upright. They are chatting away quietly, almost conspiratorially. They are so alike. Lizzy looks well. Still painfully young.

  Suddenly, seeing them side by side, she sees the obvious.

  “Oh my God, Tils, is Melly…?”

  Tilly nods. “She was going to tell you later.”

  “Enzo?”

  “Of course. But he doesn’t know.”

  “What’s she going to do?”

  “You know Melly. She’ll tell us when she’s ready.”

  “Oh my God!”

  “Ssshh. Let her tell you herself.”

  It is turning out to be quite a day.

  “Anyway. What were you going to tell me?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Now’s not the time.”

  Later that evening, after supper, she will slip out to the churchyard. Wherever he is, maybe, just maybe, Henry is holding a small baby-apple fist in his own.

  Maybe that is the greatest gift she can give him.

  Reconciliation.

  And then she might just call in on Marcus on the way home.

  Four seeds in a hole;

  One for the rook, one for the crow,

  One to rot and one to grow

  About The Author

  Fiona Holland was born in Malta during her parents’ Navy posting. School, University and Secretarial College followed in due succession, as did a variety of jobs as au-pair, wedding car chauffeur, pig farmer, potato picker and foster carer.

  Her writing career was given a mighty fillip by winning the 2013 Gladstone’s Library Short Fiction prize for her story Looking The Other Way. Gladstone’s Library is home to the Victorian, three-times Prime Minister’s book collection, and the prize was awarded from submissions from all over the world judged by established writers.

  Since that time Fiona has fo
cussed on her creative writing together with running a 5-acre small-holding in North Wales and offering a writers retreat in her hand-crafted Shepherd’s Hut. Before All Else is her first published novel.

  To find out more, visit www.fionaholland.co.uk

  Copyright Notice

  Published in 2016 by SilverWood Books

  SilverWood Books Ltd

  14 Small Street, Bristol, BS1 1DE, United Kingdom

  www.silverwoodbooks.co.uk

  Copyright © Fiona Holland 2016

  The right of Fiona Holland to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 Sections 77 and 78.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the copyright holder.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-1-78132-539-1 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-78132-540-7 (ebook)