A Witch in Love (13 page)

But it seemed everywhere I turned my mother was blocking me, and her will was so much stronger than mine; Dad, me, our house – nothing was sacred, nothing was too precious to be bent and warped to her purpose.

I thought again of Abe’s words in the falling snow:
What counts is how much you want something, how much of yourself you’re prepared to give to make it happen
 …

I thought of the steely strength I’d sensed when I pushed against the spell on Dad’s memories, and I shivered.

My mother had given everything. Not just herself, she’d fed everything she loved to the flames. But … for what?

‘Good lord!’ Dad looked up as I squelched slowly into the warm, steamy kitchen, my wet hair leaving a little trail of raindrops on the flags. He was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a glass of red wine and holding something in his hands, but he put it down as I came in and hurried across with a tea towel.

‘Thanks.’ I wiped my face, peeled off my soaking coat, and sank into a kitchen chair while Dad draped my dripping jacket over the airer above the Aga. ‘Ugh, it’s been a thoroughly crappy day really.’

‘Oh dear.’ Dad slid back into his seat opposite me at the table and picked up the piece of paper he’d been fiddling with when I came in. ‘What a shame. Especially today.’

‘Especially today? Why today?’

‘Well …’ He looked up at me, with a funny little smile. ‘You’ll think this is a bit bonkers, sweetie.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, today …’ He stopped and looked … What? I couldn’t place it. Shifty? Embarrassed?

‘Today …’ I prompted impatiently.

‘Today is really your birthday.’

OK. I wasn’t expecting that. I stared at Dad blankly and he gave a sort of sheepish laugh.

‘Sounds a bit bizarre, doesn’t it?’

‘Too right it sounds bizarre! What on earth do you mean? My birthday’s not for another ten days.’

‘Well, yes and no. This will sound a bit funny but there was a mistake when we registered your birth. Actually it was your mother.’

My mother.

The two words hit me like twin punches to the stomach and strangled whatever I might have said. I could only sit, gaping at Dad like a fool.

Did he even realize that this was the first time I’d heard those words pass his lips in – well – ever?

I reached out blindly with my mind, feeling for the spell – but it was gone. Gone! And Dad was continuing as if nothing had happened.

‘There was some kind of typo when she registered the birth – they mis-transcribed the date on the notification. It should have been the sixth of Jan, and instead they put down the sixteenth of Jan. We only noticed later.’

I gasped and managed, ‘And … you didn’t think to change it?’

‘It seemed …’ He flapped his hands helplessly. ‘It was just … well, Isla thought it was easier just to let it lie. And you know, I didn’t want to upset her. She was … There were more important things to worry about. It was only ten days – it didn’t seem important.’

‘Not important! You mean I’ve been putting a false birth date on every piece of paperwork I’ve ever signed?’

‘Well, not really. I mean, you’ve been putting the date of birth on your birth certificate – which is what this is. Some people don’t know their date of birth, you know; people who immigrate to the UK and so on. They just pick an official one that looks about right. This is really no different.’

‘It is different! It’s massively different!’

‘I know but your mother – she just wanted to let it lie. She was very persuasive.’

‘But – but …’ I stammered.

I wanted to ask, how could you do this? How could you let your wife persuade you into such a bonkers course of action? A fake birth date, for the love of Mike! But of course I didn’t need to ask. There was much about my mother I didn’t know, but I had no doubt that she’d had enough power to convince Dad, the registrar and anyone else that this was the right thing to do. The only question was
why
? And I was pretty sure Dad would have no idea of the answer to that.

‘I’m sorry, sweetie.’ Dad looked suddenly grey and weary. ‘I should have known it would upset you. I was in two minds about whether to tell you. But you see, there’s this.’

He looked down at the piece of paper he was holding and then laid it on the table between us. I don’t know why, but my heart suddenly started to hammer with painful intensity. It was an ordinary cream envelope, but it looked … old. Used. As if it had been carried around for a long time. The corners were bent and creased, and the glue that sealed the flap had begun to yellow.

There was something written, in faded bluish ink, a single word,
Anna
, and then below it a date. Today’s date. My … my eighteenth birthday.

I reached towards it, but before I could touch it Dad spoke.

‘Wait.’

I paused, my hand hovering over the envelope, my fingers itching with the desire to rip it open. I had the strong feeling that the envelope contained something momentous, something I
needed
to know. But Dad’s words, hanging in the air, held me back. I waited and he continued, his voice oddly hesitant.

‘I…I know I haven’t…Oh dear. How can I put this?’ He stopped and looked into the inky depths of his red wine, swirling it around his glass. I let my hand fall to the table and waited. When he finally spoke it was more to himself than to me. ‘Heaven knows, I’ve had long enough to prepare myself for this. And I still don’t know what to say.’ He took a deep breath and I found myself holding mine, willing him on, willing him past whatever barrier was holding him back.

‘You mustn’t think …’ he said at last, so softly I had to strain to hear. ‘You mustn’t think that because I haven’t mentioned your mother all these years, it was because I’d forgotten her, or didn’t love her. I loved her very much, too much perhaps. But somehow … somehow I could never find the words. And I didn’t think … I didn’t know …’

He stopped and then began again.

‘There are some things a child would find difficult to understand. And some things they shouldn’t
have
to understand. Do you know what I mean?’ He looked at me with an intensity that almost frightened me. Then he shook his head. ‘No, of course you don’t. But I – I didn’t want to hurt you; I didn’t want all that hanging over you. And – this will sound strange – but at times it was as if I literally
couldn’t
mention her name, as if there was something holding me back. Can you understand that?’

‘
Yes
,’ I said fervently. I tried to put into my tone exactly how much I understood that, at least. ‘Yes, I understand. But now…?’

He shrugged.

‘You’re eighteen now; you have a right to know. And, of course, there’s this.’ He tapped the letter, very lightly, and sighed. ‘I just wish I knew what it said – not that I think she would write anything to hurt you. Not deliberately. She was so lovely, so beautiful. She looked like you, actually.’ To my horror a tear coursed over his cheek. He seemed hardly to notice it. ‘And very kind, always. Even at the end, when she was at her most unwell …’

‘Unwell?’ This was not what I’d expected to hear. ‘Did she die? But I thought she ran away?’

He sighed and shut his eyes, rubbing beneath his glasses with his fingertips as if very tired.

‘She was … Oh, there’s no easy way to put this, I suppose. She became mentally ill. Depressed. There’s an illness called post-natal depression; do you know what that means?’

‘When people have a baby and become depressed?’

‘Yes, basically. But in some women it’s much more serious than what you’d normally think of as depression. It’s rare to have it so seriously, but in some cases people hear voices, they become paranoid, they think people are trying to harm their baby. It’s a kind of psychosis really.’

‘And my mum … ?’ I couldn’t finish. Dad nodded.

‘She became very … odd, I suppose, towards the end of her pregnancy. She became paranoid about everything, but particularly about the safety of the baby – about you, I mean. And she thought there were people chasing her, out to get her. In the end she ran away when she was almost due. We managed to track her down and … well, unfortunately she was sectioned.’

Sectioned. Another punch to the stomach. I could hardly breathe.

‘But … but she got better?’ I choked.

‘For a while, yes. But then after the birth it got worse. First of all she thought that everyone was trying to steal you or harm you – she wouldn’t accept any visitors; she wouldn’t go out. She’d cut ties with her family a long time before that – but she refused to let them know about the birth, even. And then it changed and she started to behave as if
she
was the risk. She became very odd. She disappeared for long stretches, did strange things. And then … then she disappeared for good.’

He had, I thought, almost forgotten that he was speaking to me. He was talking softly, almost to himself, letting the accumulated weight of eighteen years’ silence roll off his shoulders.

‘The shock of her absence was dreadful … brutal. I was half crazy with worry and trying to look after a newborn – you were only six weeks old. But in a horrible way I was almost glad, can you believe that? She had been
so
deranged, so convinced that her presence was harmful to you, that I’d almost started to believe it myself. Now, of course … well, I’ve read a lot, over the years. I think I understand a lot better what she was going through. And I think I failed her, just when she needed me most.’ He blinked and the tears ran down his cheeks again. ‘She had no one, you see. Her family had cut her off when she married me. Only me. And I failed her.’

‘Dad …’ My voice cracked. I didn’t know what to say, how to comfort him. I reached across the table and took his hand. He squeezed it, smiled, then took off his glasses and busily wiped away the moisture, coughing to try to cover his emotion.

‘She left a note,’ he continued, clearing his throat again, ‘saying that she loved us both but this was the only way she could think of to protect us, and that she hoped I could forgive her. She asked me not to tell you too much, not to haunt you with her devils, was how she put it. “Let her have her childhood innocence” she wrote. I think she was right.’ He smiled at me and patted my hand. Then he drained his wine glass with businesslike determination and refilled it.

I just sat in silence, reeling with all the new information Dad had given me, trying to fit this with the picture I’d built in my head so far. The clock above the dresser ticked and Dad gulped down his wine like a man just back from the desert. At last I cleared my throat and pointed to the envelope with my name on it.

‘And … this?’ I managed.

‘Her note asked me to give this to you on your eighteenth birthday,’ Dad said. ‘I don’t know what’s in it.’ He stopped and rubbed under his glasses again in that nervous gesture of strain. ‘She wrote it just before she left. She may not have been …’ He broke off, then said, ‘What I mean is, that’s why I wanted to tell you about her illness. Before you opened it. In case … in case the letter’s not …’

‘Not sane,’ I said dully.

‘I’m sorry,’ Dad said. ‘But I had to warn you.’

‘I understand.’ I looked down at the envelope and drew a breath. ‘Dad, please don’t be offended, but would you mind if I opened this by myself?’

Dad looked surprised for a minute, but then he recovered himself and nodded. ‘Of course. Of course. I understand.’

‘I know she was your wife,’ I tried to explain, ‘but it’s just—’

‘Anna, don’t be silly,’ Dad said firmly. ‘This is your letter. Heaven knows, there’s little enough else I’ve been able to give you from your mother. You deserve to have this to yourself. Go on.’ He pushed the envelope across the table to me and I took it. My hands shook as I put it in my pocket, but whether with fear or excitement, I couldn’t have said.

Then I stood up.

‘Thank you, Dad,’ I said. ‘For, you know. This. Everything.’

‘Thank
you
, Anna.’ Dad pushed his chair back with a screech of wood on stone and kissed my forehead. ‘I know I’m a maudlin old man who’s drunk too much wine, but I need to get this off my chest. You’ve been the best daughter an old dad could have. No –’ as I shook my head uncomfortably, blinking against my suddenly swimming eyes ‘– no, I mean it. Every day I’ve been thankful that if Isla had to be taken from me, she left someone so wonderful in her place.’

‘Oh, Dad!’

He folded me in his arms and I smelt his familiar comforting smell: aftershave, perspiration, woodsmoke. For a minute I rested against his shoulder and the years melted away, the moment melding into all the other hundreds and thousands of times Dad had comforted me against his shoulder. Then I straightened and wiped my eyes. Dad laughed and blew his nose, pretending that he hadn’t been crying.

‘Dear, dear. That’s what happens if you get through the best part of a bottle of merlot before supper. Let that be a lesson to you, my dear; red wine will turn you boring and sentimental.’

‘Quite,’ I said, managing a shaky laugh. ‘And senile too, if you’re not careful.’