The Astonishing Return of Norah Wells (27 page)

‘Mummy?' Willa's voice spills out onto the landing.

Norah stands at the bathroom door. She hears Fay banging cupboards in the kitchen downstairs. Walter's tucking Nat in. Adam's on the roof, trying to secure the tarpaulin; he hasn't spoken to her since he found out about his son. Adam looked scared, like he looked when she told him she was pregnant with Willa, but then it was because he knew that a second child would take her even further from him – now, it meant he'd lose Fay. And he looked angry too, at having missed out on his little boy, at the unfairness of it, that he'd learnt to be a father and that his child has been kept from him.

‘Mummy?'

Norah finds Willa sitting up in bed, clutching a toy fox. When she sees Norah her eyes go wide:

‘Oh. I thought you were —'

‘Mummy Fay is downstairs in the kitchen,' Norah says.

Willa nods.

They say that the first months in a child's life are the most important, the time when the bond with its mother is formed. So Willa should remember Norah, shouldn't she? Even if only instinctively. Her smell, the feel of her skin, the sound of her voice, her heartbeat. What they don't tell you is that this initial bond depends on what follows, on those early memories being consolidated by the ones that follow. Willa's memories were cut off and Fay picked up the thread – and now, Fay's all Willa knows.

‘Night-night, Willa.' Norah turns to go.

‘Could you tuck me in?' Willa calls after her.

Norah hesitates.

‘I'd like you to.'

Norah comes and sits on the edge of Willa's bed. It's crowded with soft toys: monkeys and bears and lions – and foxes.

‘Ella hasn't come to say goodnight.' Willa nudges in close to Norah.

‘I think she's having an early night. She needs to be rested for the big race.'

When Adam went to the attic to check the leak, he found the room empty. He'd wanted to go after her but Norah had heard Fay persuade him to leave it.
When she's ready, she'll find her way home,
Fay had said.

‘Is Daddy really Nat's daddy?'

‘Yes. Yes he is.'

‘So that means Nat's my brother?'

Norah nods.

‘Will you all stay and live with us, then? You and Nat and Onkel Walter?'

That had been the plan. First Norah would come home, and then, when the girls and Adam were ready, Nat and Walter would join them. How naive she'd been. They'd made a new life together, Adam, Fay and the girls: a clear, simple two parents, two kids life. A life without her. And now she's come back and Adam no longer knows who he loves, and Ella, who's built a picture of a different mother, a better mother, hates her for leaving – and for coming back. And Fay's pregnant. And even Willa, who would welcome anyone into her home, even wild foxes, doesn't understand how she can have two mummies and a new brother and an uncle.

And it was all her fault.

Remember why you came back,
she says to herself.

No matter how hard it is, it
has
to work. She'll talk to them, start from the beginning, make it good.

Rain crashes against the window, so hard it sounds like hail. Willa and Norah look out at the scaffolding.

‘Is Daddy still fixing the roof?'

‘Yes.'

‘He's very brave, isn't he?'

‘Yes, he is.' Brave and stupid. Adam may have changed in a thousand ways over the last few years, but he hasn't got a clue what he's doing up there.

‘Like Mr Fox.'

‘Mr Fox?'

‘In the story.' Willa holds up a small hardback book. ‘He's brave and adventurous.'

‘Yes, it sounds like Daddy is a bit like Mr Fox.'

‘Is Onkel Walter brave?'

‘Yes, very.'

‘And is he good at fixing things?'

‘Yes, he is. That's why he's a vet – he knows how to fix animals that are poorly.'

‘Daddy isn't very good at fixing things, is he?'

‘Well, he's not a vet.' Norah smiles.

‘Onkel Walter sounds a bit like Mummy.'

Norah's breath catches in her throat. ‘Yes, I suppose they are a bit alike.'

She expected her brother to be like her – a musician or an artist, not someone who got called out in the middle of the night to deliver calves. The perfect man for Fay – that's the first thought she'd had on meeting him.

A flash of lightning streaks through the room.

‘Will Daddy be okay up there on his own?'

‘He'll be fine.' Norah kisses Willa. And she believes it. Willa's right: Adam might not be able to fix the roof, but he's brave, braver than she's ever seen him. And so, no matter what happens, he'll be okay.

‘I like Onkel Walter,' Willa says. ‘When I'm older, I want to be a vet. But for all animals – wild ones too.'

Norah thinks of her adoptive father, a zoologist who taught her to love the natural world. Maybe, in that short time she had with Willa, that was the one thing she'd passed on.

‘You're like your grandpa,' Norah says.

Willa sits up. ‘I thought my grandpas were in heaven?'

‘Heaven?' Christ. Fay had told Willa there was a heaven?

‘I never met them, but that's where Mummy says they live. It's a hard-to-get-to place, so I can't see them. Not for the moment, anyway.'

Not for the moment?
God. Lying to children – it never turns out well, does it?

‘Can I meet my other grandpa, the one you know?'

Norah shakes her head. ‘I'm afraid not —'

‘Is he in heaven too?' Willa blurts out. ‘Most grandpas are.'

‘Sort of.' Norah takes a breath. ‘You met him once, when you were a baby.'

‘I
did
?' Those wide eyes again.

‘Yes. He loved animals, like you.'

After she left Adam and the girls it took Norah three years to visit her father.

When she walked into his room he looked up at her with his grey, rheumy eyes, their lids hooded like an owl's, small crusts of sleep buried in the folds of his skin. He stretched out his arms to Nat and she placed her little boy on his lap.

She waited for him to ask her questions about why she hadn't got in touch and where she'd been and why this was the first time he'd met his grandson, but he just sat there, stroking Nat's hair and looking out to sea.

And then he put his hand in front of his mouth and coughed. His chest heaved. He sounded as though he'd swallowed the sea. She could see that he didn't have long.

Willa scratches her scar.

‘Why didn't Mummy and Daddy take me to see him? Before he went to heaven?'

‘It would have confused you, Willa. And it might have upset him.'

Willa frowns. ‘He would have been upset to see me?'

‘Oh no… no.' Norah takes Willa's hand. ‘He would have been upset not to have seen
more
of you. But he lived far away, so it would have been hard. Sometimes it makes people sadder when they realise what they're missing – so it's easier not to make them see it.'

Willa's brow contracts. ‘Like with the foxes. It makes me sad that I know they're out there but I can't see them.'

‘Yes, like the foxes.'

‘But I'm still glad I know they're there.'

Has Adam been to see you?
Norah had asked her father when she visited him that day.

He'd blinked. Then nodded.
Adam. Yes.
He held her gaze
. He's changed. He came with a woman.

A woman?
 

He nodded again.
Your friend.

My friend?
 

The surgeon.
 

Typical Fay – coming to see Norah's father would have been her idea.

Norah took her father's hand.
If Adam gets in touch again, don't tell him I came.

‘Did you love Grandpa as much as I love Daddy?'

‘Yes. Yes, I did. He was the one who wanted to adopt me.'

There's something I have to tell you, Norah. Something important
, her father said in those last hours they spent together.

He'd let go of her hand, levered himself up from the armchair, shuffled over to his chest of drawers, yanked open the top drawer and pulled out a box. He'd brought it back to Norah and placed it on her lap.

Willa props up her animals along the wall side of her bed. ‘Did you always know you were adopted?'

‘I found out early enough.'

Norah lifted the lid off the box her father had handed her. On top lay the photograph of a young woman in her early twenties. Even though the photograph was in black and white, Norah could tell that the young woman's long, straight hair was red.

That's your mother,
her father said.

She hadn't felt the shock that was meant to come at times like this. Was it because she'd always known that she didn't belong to the mother and father she grew up with? That she looked too different?

Why didn't you tell me earlier?
she had asked her father.

He'd stared out at the sea.
I was scared of losing you. I was selfish.

‘Have you met your real mummy and daddy, then?' Willa asks.

‘Grandpa was my real daddy.'

Willa nods. ‘Like Ella and I are Louis's real mummies, even though he didn't come out of our tummy? Like I'll be mummy to the foxes?' She looks at her line of animals. ‘Like the nurses and vets at the Animal Ark?'

Norah nods.

So why tell me now, Papa?
Norah had asked.

I don't want you to be alone. When I'm gone.
Her father had coughed, as if waves were filling his lungs, as if he was drowning
. I did some research. No one knows about your father. But your mother
– your biological mother
– is living in Berlin. Or she was a few years ago.

‘Were you left in a shelter for babies, like the Animal Ark?' asks Willa.

‘My mummy – the one who gave birth to me – left me in a park.' Like in a fairytale, Norah had thought when her father told her the story. Or maybe her mother had been a sleepwalker, like Norah and Willa. Maybe she'd taken her baby girl from her crib in the middle of the night and strolled through the streets and stopped for a rest on the bench and put her down – and walked away.

‘In a park?'

‘Yes.' In a park. In the same way that Fay and Adam had found her. ‘My adoptive father walked there every day. He liked to look at the animals.'

‘And one day your daddy spotted you?' Willa's words are breathless. ‘And what about Onkel Walter? Was he left in the park too?'

Her father had reached over to the box on Norah's lap and pulled out a photograph. A little boy, the same smile, the same brown eyes.

‘Onkel Walter is younger than me. My mother kept him.'

‘She kept him and she didn't keep you?' Willa's eyes are wider than wide.

‘She was a bit older by the time she had him. She was better able to look after him.'

That's your brother, Walter,
Papa had said.

My brother?
 

He's the only one we know for sure is still around.
 

Willa rubs at her scar. One more layer of skin and it will start bleeding. It's too much for her, all these references to people abandoning each other and dying.

As Norah kissed her father goodbye he'd whispered in her ear,
Will you go home?

For her father, family was more important than anything: to know that she'd walked out on Adam and Ella and Willa… He must have been so disappointed.

She'd kissed the top of his white head.
I'd better go, Papa. We've got a train to catch.

He'd nodded and held out his hand and stroked Nat's cheek.

We'll come back soon,
she'd said.

But they never did come back.

‘So did you go and live with Onkel Walter and your first mummy and daddy?'

‘My parents had already gone.'

‘Gone where?'

‘They'd already died.'

Willa bites her lip. ‘So you never got to see them?'

‘No, I never got to see them.'

Norah remembers how bereft she'd felt when she found out that her birth mother had passed away, and how guilty that it hurt her more than when her own mother died. No, Norah didn't get to say goodbye. And that's why she'd come home to Adam and the girls. She had to see her children before it was too late, give them the time she had left. And, when the moment was right, introduce them to Nat and Walter.

‘Didn't that make you sad?'

‘I was loved, that's all that matters.'

‘By Grandpa?'

‘Yes, by Grandpa.'

Willa pushes her small tongue into the gap left by her front tooth. When she notices Norah looking at her, she lifts up her pillow, takes out her small milk tooth and holds it out. ‘You found my tooth.'

So Willa had left it for her. ‘Yes, I found it.'

‘Mummy gave it to me and said I should put it under my pillow and that the tooth fairy will bring something for my piggy bank.'

‘That's right.'

‘I don't want any money,' says Willa. ‘I want a wish. Do you think the tooth fairy will mind?'

‘I guess not,' says Norah. She's not good at these childhood games.

And before she has the time to stop her, Willa's spilling out her wish, like she did when she blew out the candles on her fox cake.

‘I want you to stay.'

From behind the kitchen door, Fay hears Norah's light tread on the stairs, across the hall and into the lounge.

She catches a glimpse of herself in the kitchen window.
You don't belong here,
her reflection says.
You never did
. And Norah's cancer, that put an end to any right she had to fight for Adam and the girls.

She sits down and leans against the door. Louis comes out from under the table, sits beside her and hangs his head in her lap. He's been traipsing after her all night.

A knock on the door. The thump vibrates through her spine.

‘Fay?'

It's Norah.

She can't face her right now.

Louis looks up at her and then cocks his head to the door.
I can't Louis. I can't
.

Another knock. ‘Fay? Can I come in?' Norah pushes the door and stumbles in.

Louis licks Fay's hand and eases his warm bulk against her calves, as if to pin her down.

‘You okay?' Norah asks.

Fay doesn't answer. She goes over and sits at the table. Norah sits opposite her. Louis follows them, eases himself under the table and sits between their feet.

The table's cluttered with dirty plates and cutlery from dinner. Fay should have been clearing up, but she'd lost the energy for tidying up after the Wells family.

Pellets of hail pound the kitchen window.

Norah puts her hand over Fay's. Fay pulls her fingers away.

‘I want to stay,' Norah says.

Of course she wants to stay. And, as always, Norah gets what she wants.

‘Fay?'

‘What?' Fay gets up, grabs some plates from the table and scrapes the uneaten pizza crusts into the bin. Then she dumps the plates in the sink and comes over to grab some more.

‘I want us to talk – like we used to. I need you to tell me, I need you to —'

Fay spins round. ‘To rubber-stamp your decision to come home? To tell you that everything's going to be just fine? I thought you'd grown up while you were away, Norah.'

This was what it had always been like, even when they were students: Norah sitting in Fay's flat with
tell me I've done the right thing
written all over her face. Like on the day she decided to marry Adam.

‘You've got cancer, Norah. You need to be with your family. And they need to be with you. There's nothing to talk about.'

Norah doesn't say anything.

Louis comes out from under the table, stares at Fay and thumps his tail against the tiles.

‘You could stay,' Norah says. ‘We could make it work. All live here together.'

Fay laughs. Just like Willa: invite the whole world to come together and damn the consequences.

A crash of thunder splits the sky.

‘For goodness sake, Norah – don't you get it? They don't want me. I'm the stopgap: I helped them keep going until you got home.'

‘They
need
you.'

Fay bows her head and looks into her hands. Yes, that's how it had always been. Fay had earned her place in Norah's life – in the life of her husband and children – because she was needed. But need wasn't love.

‘Remember the night we met?' Norah asks. ‘The night you and Adam found me?'

Fay looks up. Of course she remembers. It was four in the morning. Fay walking home from a late shift at the Royal Free, where she was doing her training.

Norah had fallen asleep on the bus on her way home from a concert and had sleepwalked her way to the playground.

‘I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't found me that night.'

Fay looks at her best friend. If only she had the courage to tell her what really happened that night – that it was Norah who rescued her. Norah and Adam. That they were the ones who made Fay feel connected to the world.

‘You'd have been fine,' says Fay.

Adam would have come along anyway, been charmed by her delicate figure, the smile that took over her face, and carried her home. Alone. Maybe that would have been better for all of them.

‘No, I wouldn't. It was meant to be – meeting you.'

Wisps of white-blonde hair have come loose around Fay's face. She notices that Norah's looking at her stomach.

‘I know,' she says.

Fay's legs buckle. She drops into one of the kitchen chairs.

‘It's okay,' Norah says.

Fay shakes her head.
No, it's not okay. Nothing's okay. Not since you came home.

‘I'll go,' Norah says.

‘No, you don't —' Fay shakes her head. ‘You don't get to come crashing back into our lives and then take off again and expect everything to keep going as though nothing's happened.' Fay turns on the tap and watches the water crash down on the plates. She turns round and points at Norah. ‘You know that Adam loves you. He's always loved you. And Willa wants you to stay. And Ella will come round. It's all going to work out for you, Norah.'

‘And you?'

Walter comes into the kitchen.

‘I think Nat's asleep,' he says to Norah.

The sky above them rumbles. Walter looks up and says, ‘Adam's still up there?' He shakes his head. ‘You should sue those roofers. Let's hope it holds for tonight.'

Fay walks to the door.

‘Excuse me. I think I'll turn in for the night.'

Norah stands up: ‘Fay —'

‘Goodnight.' Fay slips through the door.