In Her Shadow (30 page)

‘Hannah,’ he said gently, ‘it seems all this is really getting to you. I’m worried about you.’

I twisted my ring around my finger.

‘I’ll be OK,’ I said, but inside I was quietly pleased that he cared enough to be worried.

We drank a couple more beers, then wandered into the
city. Darkness had fallen. I carried my shoes by the ankle straps. The pavements were dusty and warm beneath the soles of my feet. We bought hot battered apple rings from a street stall and leaned on a wall by the river to eat them, dipping them in warm honey, watching the boats go by and the reflections of their lights in the purplish water. There was a warm, summer-city, brackish smell to the air.

‘Do any of Ellen’s family still live in Magdeburg?’ John asked as we looked out over the water. A solitary gull sculled through the late-evening sky.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Would it help you to find them, to talk to them?’

‘Perhaps. I wouldn’t want to see Ellen’s father again, but there was an aunt – Tante Karla. She might remember me.’

‘You liked her?’

‘Yes. And the family used to have a housekeeper, Mrs Todd. She’d been with them for ever.’

‘Did she come back to Germany?’

‘I think so. The Brechts were all she had in her life.’

I screwed up my paper bag and looked at John in his dinner suit, the wind ruffling the hair that had reverted to its usual untidy state. A five o’clock shadow played across his chin. I wouldn’t let myself think about how much I cared for him.

‘I used to be frightened of Mrs Todd,’ I said. ‘But she was only ever doing her best for Ellen. She even paid for her to—’

‘To what?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ I said.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

I WAS HAPPY
– the happiest I’d ever been in my whole life. I felt as if I was peeling away from my old life, the life that had so constrained me. None of the things that had happened in the past seemed to matter to me any more. I was eighteen, I had a boyfriend who picked me up in his car and took me into Falmouth to drink cider and eat chips and watch films. I’d finished school and I had a plan – a good plan – and everything in my life was, for once, pretty much perfect.

I still thought about Mr Brecht, of course, but he was not so important to me now. Dreams of marrying him and soothing him back to happiness seemed tiresome compared to the exhilaration and excitement of my life in the here and now, the fun I was having with Ricky. To be honest, I was a little embarrassed about how I used to idolize Mr Brecht. Thinking about him too much, recalling the night he kissed me, for example, made me feel uncomfortable; even a bit ashamed. Now I was involved in a real relationship, I felt far more mature and rational.

I composed a careful letter which I sent to the professor in charge of the Chilean excavation to ask if there were any volunteer vacancies, enclosing my CV and a long, illustrated
explanation about why I was so keen to participate, in order to convince him of my enthusiasm. I hadn’t told my parents, not yet, but they must have had an inkling as to what was going on. I knew Mum would act as if she were pleased, but would be quietly heartbroken if I went to South America. She had sown the seed of the idea in my head, but had never dreamed I would go through with it. Why would I? I was the timid, unadventurous child. If only she knew how bored I was of vacuuming the bedrooms in the Seagull Hotel, emptying the waste-paper baskets and wiping the sticky breakfast-tables. I got through these chores by thinking about how it would feel to board a jumbo jet and cross the Atlantic. My tentative plans filled me with anticipation so thrilling it made me catch my breath. I had to hold tight to my stomach, press on it with my fists to calm the butterflies of excitement inside.

Ricky called for me almost every evening. I sat beside him in his car and he told me every detail of his day, and I told him every detail of mine, and he always told me some stupid jokes which I found funnier and cleverer than they really were. He teased me relentlessly, was sweet and a little pompous, and he made me feel better than I was. I’d had no idea it was possible to be so happy. I had never had so much energy or felt such potential within me, as if I could achieve anything I wanted to – as if the world really was my oyster.

Ricky took me into the travel agent’s in Falmouth and we asked the assistant about cheap ways to fly to Chile. She asked questions and we told her about the dig and she said, ooh, she wished she’d done something like that when she was younger. She said, ‘You always think you’ll have time to do these things, and then one day you wake up and you’re married with three kids and a mortgage and you’re exhausted and you realize it’s too late.’ Ricky and I smiled at
one another. We were quietly proud that we hadn’t left it too late. The assistant printed out a list of flights and prices and gave it to me. Even the cheapest and least convenient option was more expensive than I’d anticipated, and it was clear I was going to have to save every penny I could earn until September if I was going to join Ricky on the dig.

After the travel agency, Ricky and I drove out into the countryside, found a secluded lane, pulled in at the gated entrance to a fallow field, wriggled out of our jeans and had breathless, gleeful sex. We did this at every opportunity. Our private joke was that the little Fiat would soon need new springs. I walked around with a permanent sore feeling between my legs that I bore with pride because it reminded me of Ricky every time I sat or stood or simply moved about in my chair. Ricky came for tea at my house often. He charmed and perhaps ever so slightly bored my parents with his earnest enthusiasm and his detailed descriptions of South America. I was invited to Sunday lunch at Ricky’s and was intimidated and impressed by his tall, well-spoken mother and high-ranking Royal Navy father. After a huge meal I played Monopoly with Ricky’s younger sisters in a living room the size of a tennis court and hung an imaginary photograph of myself and Ricky on our wedding day amongst the scores of family portraits on the walls.

Every Friday afternoon, I went into the Post Office and paid the money I’d earned that week into my savings account. It was adding up.

I was so tied up with Ricky and my own newfound happiness that, in the little spare time I had when I was not working, I was not paying any attention to Ellen. Tante Karla was still at Thornfield House and I excused the neglect of my friend by rationalizing that, as long as Karla was there keeping an eye on things, I didn’t have to worry about Ellen. Jago was working extra shifts wherever he could get them, saving up his money
too. Because of this he wasn’t seeing much of Ellen either. She was, for a while, pretty much on her own.

She tried to see me. She walked down to Cross Hands Lane to call for me, but each time I was out. If I’d been there for her then … if I’d been more observant …

But I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t notice.

The morning when things started to go badly wrong again started auspiciously enough. I was alone at home, eating toast and honey in the kitchen, listening to the radio, when Trixie set up her daily routine of barking at the postman. On the hessian mat by the front door that said
Welcome
was a blue airmail letter. I pulled an astonished face at Trixie – who grinned and panted back – picked up the letter, and Trixie and I ran upstairs. I shut the bedroom door behind us and sat on the floor with my back against the wall, holding the letter to my chest. I could feel my heart beating through my shirt.

I opened the envelope with my thumb, unfolded the letter, read. It was brief and to the point. There
was
a vacancy for another volunteer on the dig and the team would be happy to welcome me among their number.

‘I
can
go. I’m going!’ I cried. Trixie thumped her stubby little tail as I knelt beside her and covered the side of her big, ugly head with kisses.

I read the letter about twenty times, until I’d memorized every word, then I folded it carefully, tucked it into the pocket of my shorts and went downstairs. At last, something amazing had happened to me. At last, I had something exciting to tell Ellen! I put on my trainers in a hurry, hopping on first one leg, then the other, got the bike out of the shed and pedalled up the hill, my legs powered by excitement. I stood on the pedals, leaning forward over the handlebars and pushing down as I rode through the dappling tree shadows. I knew my days in Trethene were numbered, days of going up this hill, of listening to the brook rushing down
over its stones, of collecting wildflowers from the hedgerows, and waiting for the Williamses’ prize-winning dairy herd to lumber in their docile manner from the grazing pasture to the milking sheds while covering the lane in manure.

When I reached Thornfield House, I propped my bike against the wall and skipped over to the front door. I rang the bell, expecting Tante Karla to open the door. I couldn’t wait to see her – I knew she’d be thrilled by my news – but instead Mrs Todd was there and my heart sank, because I knew, as soon as I saw her face, that something bad had happened. It wasn’t only Mrs Todd. The inside of the house seemed darker. There was no music playing, no windows open, no sound of Tante Karla cheerfully going about her business.

‘Good morning, Mrs Todd,’ I said. ‘Is Ellen in?’

Mrs Todd opened her mouth as if she were about to send me away, and then she changed her mind and closed it again. Behind her, I saw Ellen standing in the gloom of the hallway. She was wearing a long white nightgown and she looked like a wraith, her hair all lank around her shoulders, her long feet bare, her shoulders hunched and her eyes like hollows in her face, as if she had been crying for a hundred years. Her arms were wrapped around herself as if she were cold and her head was held low, like a prisoner in a war photograph.

‘What’s happened?’ I whispered. ‘Oh God, what now?’

I pushed past Mrs Todd and she moved her body slightly to let me by. I heard the front door closing quietly behind me as I rushed forward and clasped Ellen in my arms. She was resistant, doll-like, and she smelled strange – unwashed, but there was another smell to her, slightly metallic, slightly milky. Her hair was greasy against my cheek. I took her hand, led her into the kitchen. She was limping oddly. I pulled a chair out from the table and helped Ellen into it; I almost had to fold her at the waist and knees to make her
sit. Then, because it was what my mother would have done, I filled the kettle from the sink tap and put it on the stove. An undrunk cup of tea was already cold on the table, a skin on top of the liquid. The kitchen was dark and cool, full of the salty, meaty smell of boiling ham. A large saucepan rattled on the hob. A blue glass vase full of dying knapweed, oxeye daisies and yellow ragwort stood on the windowledge. Tante Karla must have put the flowers there – they weren’t Mrs Todd’s style at all – but already there was a smell of slime and decay about the vase.

Is Pieter Brecht dead? I wondered for a moment. Has he killed himself or been mortally injured in an accident? No, that was not possible. Mrs Todd would have said something at once. It couldn’t be Jago. Jago was fine when he left for work at the crack of dawn that morning. He had been whistling when he left the house. I’d heard him slam the door of his Escort and start up the engine. If anything had happened to him, I would have heard before Ellen.

‘Where’s Karla?’ I asked. ‘Has something happened to her?’

‘She’s gone back to Germany,’ said Mrs Todd.

Ellen looked up. ‘Papa sent her away.’

‘Oh.’

‘Mr Brecht’s mother is unwell,’ Mrs Todd said. ‘She’s been unwell for some time. Karla has returned to Magdeburg to look after her.’

‘Papa insisted,’ said Ellen. ‘He told her we’d be fine. We were fine. We were right as rain until she left.’

I unhooked three mugs from the rack and glanced over my shoulder at Ellen. She was sitting, leaning forward with her hands between her legs, her back hunched, her hair falling over her face. Her feet were dirty. Mrs Todd stood at the entrance to the kitchen. Time seemed to have slowed down awfully. I put a spoonful of coffee granules into the bottom
of each mug and, when the kettle whistled, filled them with boiling water. I took a bottle of milk from the fridge door, and poured milk into each mug. I put the bottle back, stirred three heaped teaspoons of sugar into Ellen’s mug and put it in front of her. Ellen did not move.

‘What’s happened?’ I asked Mrs Todd again.

Ellen looked up, for the first time, and held a thin finger to her lips.

‘Papa’s upstairs,’ she breathed.

Because the light was behind Mrs Todd as she stood in the doorway, she was a silhouette to me, odd wisps of hair caught by the golden sunshine coming through the hall window, and I couldn’t see the nuances of her expression, only the line of her lips.

‘Ellen has got herself into trouble,’ she said quietly.

‘What kind of trouble?’ I asked, sitting down in front of Ellen, taking hold of her hands. I squeezed them for reassurance but she did not respond. They were icy cold in mine and limp as a dead girl’s hands.

‘The baby kind,’ Ellen whispered.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

THAT NIGHT, IN
Berlin, in my hotel room, I thought about Mrs Todd. I remembered how loyal she had been to the Brechts, how she had stayed on for Ellen’s sake after Mrs Brecht’s death, how she had always tried to protect Ellen. I had been so scared of her when I was young, and now I could see the situation from an adult perspective, I was ashamed of the way I’d treated her.

I was not haunted by nightmares, but by regret. I thought of all the times when Mrs Todd had quietly intervened at Thornfield House; how, sometimes by simply walking into a room, she had caused a subtle shift in tension; how she had protected both Anne Brecht and her daughter. It had to be more than loyalty that kept her there after Anne’s death. She must have loved Ellen. It was something neither of us realized or recognized at the time.

The next morning, I went downstairs for an early breakfast of bread and fruit, then I returned to my room and telephoned my mother. She was surprised and flustered to hear my voice, assuming immediately that something had gone wrong, that I was in trouble, that I was ill. I reassured her that everything was absolutely fine, and made some small talk about the frustrations of airport security checks
and the friendliness of the German people, then I took a deep breath and asked, ‘Mum, you don’t happen to know what became of Mrs Todd, do you?’