The Shadow Year (40 page)

In contrast, Freya is softening and ripening. Nearly seven months pregnant and she swells with promise, growing plumper by the day. She still seems ashamed to reveal the changes to her body, but like the rest of them, she can’t resist the water. Often she joins Kat in the lake but unlike her sister’s gruelling laps, Freya prefers to splash around until she has acclimatised to the temperature and then float upon its surface, the pale hump of her body rising up out of the water. ‘I feel weightless,’ she says. ‘I feel like nothing.’ Her voice is wistful. ‘It’s as if I could just float away.’

Kat doesn’t look at her. She finds her sister’s belly and the plump curve of her breasts grotesque. She pretends she hasn’t heard and dives back beneath the water, pulling herself away from Freya, back towards the shore.

Kat is careful to leave the water first that morning. It’s been a week or so since Freya has taken one of her long, solitary walks and she can sense her restlessness building. She is certain she’ll be leaving again soon on one of her mysterious outings and this time, when Freya leaves, Kat is determined to follow.

She shivers her way across the damp grass and dresses quickly in jeans and a jumper then towel dries her hair. Up near the cottage she leans over a clump of spindly nettles and carefully picks a few young shoots, before heading into the kitchen where she makes a cup of bitter nettle tea. As the leaves steep, she stands at the window with her hands wrapped around the warm mug. She can hear Ben and Carla hooting with laughter somewhere upstairs but she pays them no attention. Instead, she watches as Freya wades from the water, drying herself with a towel then leaning awkwardly, trying to wrap her long, wet hair in the fabric. It doesn’t look easy, the bulge of her belly constricting her movements.

Mac approaches from over near the lean-to. He says something to Freya that Kat can’t hear then holds his hand out for the towel. Freya nods, passes it over and turns her back to him. Kat blows across the hot surface of her tea but her eyes never leave the couple down by the lake. She watches intently as Mac reaches up and takes her sister’s long, damp hair between the folds of the towel. He rubs and rubs and Kat notices how Freya leans into him, just a little, how his hands hover for a moment over Freya’s shoulders, as if wanting to touch her but afraid to. Summoning his courage with a visible breath, he lowers them, finally, then spins her around to face him. Freya smiles up at Mac and their eyes lock for what feels like a very long time. Kat watches it all from the cottage and understands: Mac and Freya. How
sweet
, she thinks with a twist of resentment. Is there anything – or anyone – Freya won’t try to take?

An hour later, Freya slips out of the back door just as the yellow sun strikes the tops of the alder trees. Kat gives her a couple of minutes’ head start then follows her out in the direction of the meadow. She breaks through the copse of trees just in time to see Freya heft herself awkwardly over the gate before turning right up the overgrown track. Kat hangs back for a moment then marches on in pursuit.

The endless spring rain has made the track boggy. Kat slips and splashes her way up the hill, following her sister’s footprints through the claggy mud. Overgrown verges burst with dandelion flowers and white tufts of cotton grass. The hedgerows rustle with life. As she goes an inquisitive blue tit flits in and out of the thicket, urging her on with a cheeky staccato chirrup.

Higher and higher they climb until the landscape changes, opening out from enclosed hedgerows and fields to scrubby moorland. It is harder for Kat to stay hidden. She drops back even further, keeping an eye out for the distant flash of Freya’s billowing white dress, but she needn’t worry; Freya doesn’t turn round once. Typical, thinks Kat, so trusting, so naive.

It’s colder the higher up they go, the air clearer and crisper. The sky gapes wide open. Kat feels as though she’s walking right into it. It’s a barren landscape – nothing much but scrubby heather and bilberry bushes yet to flower and here and there a lonely rowan tree pushing up towards the sky.

Freya strides on, no longer following a visible walking track, but still confident in her direction, as if guided by some inner compass. Kat follows behind doggedly, determined not to lose her.

A little further on and Freya startles an unsuspecting red grouse from a clump of heather. As it takes flight, she reaches out a hand to the crumbling stone wall beside her, her other hand coming to rest for a moment on the swell of her belly. Kat hangs back, her heart in her mouth, waiting for her sister to walk on but Freya doesn’t move and Kat wonders if she has been spotted. But it’s not Kat that has brought her to a standstill. Up on the moor, only twenty metres or so from where her sister stands, a red deer comes into view. Kat’s eyes widen. It is startlingly beautiful, yet to shed its elegant antlers, which point to the sky like the twisted branches of the rowan trees. Freya stands stock-still, facing off against the stag until a gust of wind catches the fabric of her dress, sending it billowing out around her legs. The movement spooks the animal and it rears away over the crest of the hill. Kat holds her breath, only releasing it when Freya begins to walk again. She can’t believe she hasn’t been up here before. It’s too easy, at the cottage, to forget about the beauty all around them. She’s become lazy. She’s forgotten to appreciate their wild isolation.

They walk and walk until gradually the landscape shifts once more, assuming a more cultivated feel with stone walls and stretches of barbed wire fencing, tufts of ratty sheep’s wool locked onto the spikes and flapping in the breeze like tiny white flags. Kat spies a field of gambolling lambs and then further, in the distance, a grey stretch of gravel road leading towards a thin plume of smoke wafting high into the air, below which Kat can just make out the chimney stack it drifts from. She understands, at last, what it is they are heading towards: a farm, nestled high up on the moors.

She hangs back even further now. Having come so far, the last thing she wants is to be discovered by someone working in the fields, but when Freya draws near to the sprawling stone farmhouse, she realises she is in danger of losing sight of her altogether, and so she speeds up again and is just in time to hear the barking of a dog as it greets Freya in the yard. Kat peers round a crumbling wall and sees a golden Labrador bumping against her sister’s legs.

Alerted perhaps by the sound of the dog, a dark-haired woman opens the front door and stands there, looking out. She wipes her hands on a checked tea towel and when she sees Freya playing with the dog, gives an exclamation of surprise. Kat watches open-mouthed as Freya steps up to the doorway and into the arms of the woman. They greet each other like old friends before Freya is drawn into the warmth of the farmhouse and the weathered door closes behind her, shutting Kat off from the unfolding scene within.

Kat stands frozen in her hiding place. She doesn’t know what to make of what she’s just seen, but she knows who the woman is, she’s sure of it; it’s the same woman who waved at her that morning all those months ago, from up on the ridge. Kat’s brain clicks into gear and things quickly begin to fall into place: the lavish Christmas Day basket . . . the purple wool. Freya has been making friends with the locals. Freya has been
cheating
. While the rest of them have been toughing it out, sticking to the rules, trying to live frugal lives of self-sufficiency, Freya has been indulging herself with social outings and home comforts. Kat’s smile is grim. It’s hardly the image of independence that Simon has extolled and Kat knows he would class it as a betrayal, not least because Freya has potentially jeopardised their entire project. Simon didn’t even want them visiting local pubs or shops too often. What on earth would he make of Freya befriending a local farmer, visiting her regularly for cups of tea and cosy chats?

It’s a long walk back to the cottage and once or twice Kat isn’t even sure if she is following the right path, but she picks her way across the moorland and then down the hillside until she rejoins the track leading to the meadow and the lake, buoyed by the knowledge that she has something that shows Freya in a less than perfect light. Finally, she has ammunition to use, when the time is right. Kat knows there is no way Simon will forgive Freya for this and she smoulders with indignation and anger the whole way. But there is something else there too, lurking in the hot furnace of her belly: a spark of relief.

Simon is waiting. He appears in the doorway of the lean-to and beckons for her to join him. Kat walks across the trampled grass, taking the moment to observe him from a distance. Living together in such close proximity, she’s grown used to seeing him up close; she has forgotten to see the full shape of him. Now she regards him as a stranger might: a tall, lean man with dark hair curling to his shoulders and a faint shadow of stubble on his chin. He is thinner than he was at university, but somehow he looks stronger, more muscular and powerful, his body honed by physical work. His face is changed too – all angles and shadows in the half light of the shed, like a cubist painting – and yet still the familiar curve of his lips, the high cheekbones, the dark, brooding eyes. She feels his beauty – and her desire for him – like a hot ache.

She is expecting him to ask where she has been but his mind is on other matters. ‘Come here,’ he says ushering her into the shadows of the lean-to.

She throws him a playful smile but as soon as she is inside she sees the bucket, rope and hunting knife laid out upon the wooden crate and a little further away, the rifle propped against the wall where it gleams ominously in the gloom. ‘What’s all this?’ she asks, the smile beginning to fade on her face.

‘It’s time for Wilbur to meet his maker.’

Kat stares at him. ‘But . . . Freya . . . she’ll be devastated.’

Simon shrugs.

‘Does Mac know?’

‘I hardly think we need his permission, do we?’

Kat clears her throat. ‘Shouldn’t we wait for him though?’

‘Why?’ asks Simon, a tight smile playing on his lips. ‘You think Mac’s the only one who knows how to do anything remotely useful around here?’

‘No, of course not,’ she backtracks. ‘I just thought . . . you and him together . . . it would be easier, surely?’

‘Don’t worry; I’ll hold the pig.
You’re
the one that’s going to shoot him.’

Kat swallows. She searches his eyes for a spark of humour – hopes to see that he is just toying with her – but his face is set with grim determination. ‘One shot through the head. Then we hang him up, skin him and remove the entrails. How hard can it be?’

Kat swallows again. ‘I don’t know . . .’

‘What don’t you know, Kat?’ Simon looks at her, his head tilted to one side. ‘Isn’t this what it’s about? Growing and rearing our own food . . . being responsible for death as well as life?’

‘I don’t think—’

‘He’s been royally pampered all the time he’s been here. Probably eaten better than us most days.’

She can’t return his smile. She can’t get Freya out of her head. Her sister loves Wilbur. She thinks about the way he follows her about the cottage garden, or trails her by the lake, the affection she bestows upon it as she would a spoiled child. Kat is agonising over the decision when the hapless pig wanders into the barn. He snuffles and snorts his way through the dirt, then stares up at them longingly, hopeful for a dry crust or a handful of scraps.

‘Look at him, so spoilt, so fat. He’s not a pet. It’s time he played his part.’ Simon reaches out and touches her arm but Kat can’t help it; silently she wills the pig to run away, to turn and leave the barn . . . but Wilbur, oblivious to the fateful conversation taking place above his head, just trots a little closer, still hopeful for some food.

‘Here little piggy,’ croons Simon. He bends down with his empty hand outstretched and Wilbur trots obediently forwards. When the pig is close enough, Simon grabs him around the neck and wraps the rope like a noose about him. The pig bucks and squeals but Simon ties him tight to one of the wooden posts in the shed and then straddles him, holding him still between his knees. Wilbur doesn’t like it. His squeals rise in pitch. ‘Quick, Kat, fetch the gun.’

She moves on autopilot, takes up the gun in her hands, feels the cool metal beneath her trembling fingers.

‘Take the safety off. Good. Now point it at the front of his head. There. Slightly above and between the eyes.’

Wilbur falls silent. It’s as if he knows what’s coming. He gives one last half-hearted buck but Simon wrestles him back between his knees and secures the noose more tightly against the post. ‘OK, slowly now; I’ll move away, you shoot.’

‘I don’t think . . . I can’t . . .’ Kat is filled with panic. ‘What if I miss?’

Simon’s gaze bores straight into her, his eyes like flint. ‘Don’t.’

She presses the rifle to the pig’s forehead. Wilbur gazes up at her, his blue eyes wide with terror. Kat tries to stare him down then looks away. She can’t do it.

‘Come on,’ says Simon, egging her on. ‘Do it. Shoot him.’ Slowly, he backs away, leaving Wilbur tied to the post, the gun pressed to his head.

She thinks about Freya. She thinks of her sister lying upstairs in the cottage while Simon made love to her. She thinks of the baby, Simon’s child, growing in her sister’s swollen belly. She thinks of Freya and the way she had gazed at Mac only that morning down by the shores of the lake . . . the sight of her walking purposefully out across the moors . . . of how she’d been welcomed by that stranger with open arms.

‘Now,’ whispers Simon.

She thinks of all Freya’s betrayals and she closes her eyes and squeezes the trigger.

The sound is deafening. The impact ricochets up her arms and lodges in her shoulders. She feels the explosion deep in her chest, as if it is
her
that has been shot, not the pig. Something warm and wet splatters onto her hands. She feels it on her face too. She moans at the horror but gradually the ringing in her ears stops and she hears footsteps running towards the barn.

‘What the hell?’ It is Mac, standing breathless in the doorway. He sees the pig lying on the dirt between them and he races forwards. ‘What have you done?’