AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her nine year-olds were the kind of twins that were so close they sometimes spoke in an incomprehensible secret language; they were growing out of it, but they were still an island, the two of them, a unit which didn’t include her. Mara was sometimes allowed into their secrets, but often not. She wondered what it would have been like to have just one child, or for John and Franny – Frances, not that she ever answered to it – to have been born a few years apart. Would they have shared their secrets with her then? It seemed that Mara’s family was full of secrets; perhaps it was in their DNA.
This house, it turned out, had sheltered generations of her family. As close to DNA as a wooden house aged by salt and wind could get, it had creaked under the feet of Hughes women since 1900. And yet, today was the first day Mara had ever seen it.
The solicitor, a woman perhaps her own age, was dressed practically in a sky-blue rainproof parka with the hood up and some tough-looking lace-up shoes. She had introduced herself as Clare in a no-nonsense but kind voice. Mara appreciated the kindness and Clare’s straightforwardness; both were in short supply in her life right now.
‘This is it,’ Clare agreed. ‘Shame it’s been so neglected. Might have been a boarding house once, I s’pose, given the size, but it’s hard to say. Must have been rebuilt a fair few times to still be standing all these years.’
‘Hmm.’ Mara peered up at the wooden roof: it didn’t look strong enough to hold up to the wind. ‘How many bedrooms has it got?’
Clare looked at the paperwork and shook her head.
‘Doesn’t say here, but I’d say maybe four or five? Big place, just needs some love.’
‘Mummy, can we explore?’ John pulled against her, impatient to get away. Mara pointed to the house.
‘Stay where I can see you. Don’t go behind it,’ she instructed, pulling her own long, loose coat around her. It was August – thank goodness it was still the summer holidays, because she didn’t know whether she’d have to find another school for the twins or not – but it was windier than she expected next to the sea.
Mara pressed the keys into her palm. ‘I didn’t know it existed until last week.’
‘Oh?’ Clare raised her eyebrows enquiringly, but Mara didn’t elaborate any further. ‘Well. It’s yours now! The deeds are here.’ She handed Mara a thick envelope, bound with a blue rubber band. ‘I’ll be in touch about the rest of your mother’s estate. There’s not much, as you know.’ She turned her gaze to the house, frowning. ‘You’re planning to sell it, then?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Mara watched the children as they raced in circles on the sandy beach: Franny’s hat had blown off towards the sea and was caught on the wet rocks that led to the water. Her daughter was explaining something in detail to her brother. Mara wondered absently what it was this time – the life cycle of a clam, common seaside birds and their nesting habits, or an old favourite, perhaps the story of the first woman to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel?
She didn’t have a choice about selling it, not now. Gideon’s words reverberated in her mind:She’s moving in. It’s over between you and me. You need to leave. Her husband of twelve years had thrown her out; he’d offered to keep the children, though he hadn’t objected too strongly when she’d insisted they come with her. Straight-backed, she’d walked out of the house she’d thought was her forever home, one hand in John’s and one in Franny’s. It wasn’t even her crime: Gideon had been unfaithful. He’d been sleeping with his executive assistant for the past two years.
Every time Mara thought about it, she felt sick. She’d felt even sicker when she’d had to explain it to the twins. She had to keep explaining, too. Today, John had wanted to know why Dad wasn’t coming to see the beach house with them, and yesterday, Franny wanted to know if they’d see Gideon at the weekend. She felt awful trying to justify the fact that Gideon was spending all his free time with his new girlfriend – she wanted to saymistress, it had more of the sense of betrayal in it – and hadn’t made time to sit down with Mara to talk about access.
‘Right. Well, good luck!’ Clare shook Mara’s hand. ‘Can I give you a lift back to town?’
Mara shook her head.
‘I’ve got a car.’ She smiled, tiredly. ‘My husband let me keep that, at least.’
Clare nodded, following Mara’s gaze to the black SUV parked on the dirt road behind the house. She reached for Mara’s shoulder and squeezed it.
‘Chin up. It’ll be all right,’ she said, her voice loud over the wind. ‘Things will improve. I promise.’
What a cliché, Mara thought.His assistant.He couldn’t even be bothered to go farther than his own office to find love – although, knowing Gideon, she doubted that love was really the motivation. In twelve years of marriage, he’d told her he loved her twice. Once on their wedding day, and once when the twins were born. DutifulI love yous. Contractual, obligatoryI love yous. No excess.
She should have known. She should have seen it coming. But she hadn’t.
Sometimes life takes the tiller and steers the boat over the falls, her mother Abby would have said; she had been the one who told Franny the story of Annie Edson Taylor, the first woman to survive going over Niagara Falls in her woman-sized barrel.No point trying to steer upstream.Abby had been fond of boating, rivers and waterfalls as life metaphors.Mara had tried tosteer the boat of her marriage upstream, as Abby would have said, against the cold tide of Gideon’s disinterest in her for so long that, now, as the boat hurtled them towards oblivion, she felt a kind of strange calm. It was good not to have to work so hard anymore.
Sometimes, life takes the tiller, rips it off and stuffs it down your throat, Mara ruminated, mocking her mother’s soft Cornish accent in her own head, then feeling instantly guilty. None of this was Abby’s fault.
Life wasn’t a boat ride. Or, perhaps, you thought you were sailing peacefully down a river on a yacht, but in fact, you were plunging over a deadly waterfall at a hundred miles an hour with your rat bastard of a husband standing at the top, waving you goodbye. Annie Edson Taylor had at least made her own barrel and stuffed it with pillows.
Still, she had the car. Gideon had taken pains to point out its impeccable service history and recent MOT as he handed her the keys, like he was doing her a favour. Like he wasn’t kicking her out of her own home and moving his – she searched for the right phrase in her mind, but all she could come up with wasfancy woman– well, hewasmoving his fancy woman in.She is fancy, ergo, I am not fancy, Mara thought.
She stifled the impulse to laugh, because she knew it was the kind of wild laughing that would lead to tears, and she couldn’t break down in front of the children.
‘Come on, let’s look inside!’ she shouted.
The weather was turning and it was going to rain any minute; at least if they looked inside, they’d be able to shelter for a while and then she’d drive them back to the little hotel they were staying in in St Ives, along the North Cornish coast from Magpie Cove. She had enough money to stay there perhaps a couple of months while she put the house up for sale, and then, as long as it sold fast enough, she could buy somewhere small for her and the twins. She missed St Ives: her house, like many, sat on steep hills overlooking the pretty harbour which twinkled at night with the lights from the yachts and fishing boats; you could enjoy plump oysters and a glass of champagne in the evening at one of the modern harbour restaurants, watching the stars come out and the moon rise. Or, from the raised deck of her old house, which sat above an ample garden, she could watch the boats coming in and out with a cup of coffee between the school run and whatever else she had on that day.
Any new place she bought wouldn’t be fancy, not like their house on Cedars Avenue, one of the most desirable streets in St Ives, with its double garage and top-of-the-range kitchen, but at least it would be hers. Like Annie Taylor, she could at least make her own barrel.
CHAPTER TWO
