Yesterday's Sun (15 page)

Twisting her finger free, Holly slipped her hands beneath Libby. She wasn’t sure how Tom would react to seeing his daughter being carried in midair by an invisible woman, but Holly didn’t care; she desperately needed to hold Libby. Libby’s body, however, seemed to be glued to the floor; struggle as she might, and in a repeat of her previous vision, Holly couldn’t hold her baby in her arms. Tears of frustration stung her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I wish I knew why, but I just can’t hold you,” she whispered.

The smile on Libby’s face faltered and was replaced by a frown as she looked up at her mother. Holly forced a smile and stuck out her tongue, to which Libby blew a wet raspberry in response, and the baby’s smile returned.

Holly stroked her soft blond hair, but behind her, she heard Tom returning from the kitchen. “I love you, Libby,” whispered Holly, planting a kiss on her forehead. The words had come out before Holly had time to think about what she was saying, but it felt right. Whether Libby was a figment of her imagination or not, Holly knew she was experiencing pure motherly love for the first time.

When Tom came back she scuttled over to a corner of the room and watched as he picked up Libby. “Beddie-byes for you, my little pumpkin,” he said. With a feeding bottle in one hand and Libby balanced over one shoulder, Tom turned to leave. As he headed out of the room, Libby stretched her hand toward Holly, trying to grab hold of her before disappearing from view.

“Night-night, sleep tight, my angel,” Holly called out in a hushed whisper.

Left on her own, Holly felt lost and scared once more and she wondered what to do next. She looked around the room, which seemed remarkably similar to the room she was used to. There were a few additions that could be accounted for by Libby’s arrival, not to mention new scatter cushions and a rug, which were in exactly the right shade of green that Holly had already been scouring the shops for. There was also a pile of abandoned greeting cards on the shelf next to the smiling china cat that Tom had bought for her from Covent Garden on their first official date.

Holly tried and failed to return the cat’s smile as she turned her attention to the pile of greeting cards. Picking up the uppermost card was almost as difficult as picking up Libby and when she finally had it in her grasp, she realized with a shudder that it was a sympathy card and let it drop. A cloud of dust wafted into the air and Holly imagined it wrapping around her like a shroud.

She quickly stepped away and moved toward the fireplace, running her finger along the top of the mantelpiece as if she were a matron inspecting the cleanliness of a ward. It, too, was covered in a sheet of dust. Tom obviously had more on his mind than housework; still Holly couldn’t help but think it wasn’t a good thing for Libby to be in such a dusty room. Unable to help herself, Holly pulled at the sleeve of her fleece and used it as best she could to wipe away the dust. She stood back to admire her work only to watch in growing horror as a new layer of dust settled on its surface within moments.

Holly sensed she didn’t belong here, but she was determined not to be frightened off. Perhaps her life depended on it. There was little else in this room to offer any clues, so Holly decided to extend her exploration to the study. She crept out of the living room and listened for Tom. He was now upstairs, feeding Libby, and Holly resisted the urge to go up and watch them go through their bedtime routines. Instead, she headed past the stairs and entered the study, which was draped in shadows and lit only by the moonlight seeping through the window. She took a risk and switched on a lamp, surprised this time by how easy it was to flick the switch. Perhaps her presence was growing stronger along with her determination to make sense of everything.

Tom’s desk looked far more used than she had ever seen it. Leafing through the debris of his work, she spotted various research notes and scripts that fit in with the news anchor position he would now have started, if this really were eighteen months in the future. There were penciled notes at the edges of some pages in Tom’s familiar scrawl, although the sharpness of the postscripts and the harshness of the comments didn’t feel like Tom’s writing at all. It had a tangible anger to it.

Propped upright on a bookshelf, Holly found what she was looking for. It was a box file and it had one word handwritten on its spine. It simply said “Holly,” and in contrast to his notes, Tom had obviously taken his time writing each letter perfectly. Inside the box there were official documents and letters, all relating to Holly’s death, but there was only one document that would point her to her destiny.

Her hands trembled as she held aloft her death certificate. The certificate recorded the cause of her death as an aneurism on September 29, 2011, following childbirth complications. Holly took a deep breath and focused on the sensation of her blood flowing through her veins and her heart beating rapidly in her chest. She was most definitely alive. “Can’t believe everything you read,” she told herself, forcing a smile and ignoring the weight that this knowledge had placed on her shoulders.

Hearing soft footfalls coming down the stairs, Holly quickly put away the papers and switched off the lamp. She entered the hall just as Tom disappeared into the kitchen. He was back out in a matter of seconds with a glass in one hand and a bottle of whisky in the other. Holly followed him into the living room, although with some reluctance. There was something about the look on his face that had given her a sense of foreboding.

Tom sat down heavily on the sofa and stared at the bottle in his hand. He looked deflated, less like the man who had left the room with Libby bouncing on his shoulder and more like the ghost of her previous vision. Holly watched from the safety of the doorway, unsettled by the sense of desolation creeping across the room toward her and feeling the need to keep an escape route clear in case she had cause to use it. Tom poured a generous measure of whisky for himself and swirled the golden liquor around his glass, staring into its depths.

He suddenly gasped as if suppressing a sob and Holly jumped out of her skin. She hit the door behind her and the half-open door closed slightly. Tom looked straight at her and for a second Holly felt his gaze on her, but the connection didn’t last. Tom’s face lifted imperceptibly with expectation, only for a tidal wave of grief to sweep away all remnants of hope.

Tom shook his head and turned his attention back to the glass. “Hello, Holly,” he whispered. “I know you’re watching me. I know you’re shaking your head at me and telling me to pull myself together. So why don’t you come through that door right now? Why don’t you march in and tell me to tidy up all this mess?”

“Tidy up this mess, Tom,” ordered Holly. Although she spoke in hushed tones, Holly willed Tom to hear her.

Tom made not the slightest sign that he had heard her speak, but still he answered her. “I can’t. I can’t even wipe away the dust, because I keep imagining your fingerprints there on every surface, on everything you might have touched, and I can’t bear to wipe them away just like you were wiped away out of my life.”

Holly gulped back her pain and was torn between running toward Tom and running away from him. Instead she did neither. She stood transfixed to the spot as he carried on talking to her ghost. “I should have been an actor. I’m so good at making people believe I’m OK. I’m back at work and as long as someone’s there to watch me put on my act, I’ve got the stiff-upper-lip thing down to a tee. But that’s not the real me, Holly. Only you could see through to the real me. Oh, Holly, God, how I love the sound of your name. You wouldn’t believe the lengths people go to just to avoid saying it. They must think I’ll turn into a blubbering wreck if they say your name. Me, blubbering? Now that’s a joke.”

Tom laughed but it sounded hollow. Holly had edged closer to him as he carried on talking, as he tried to reach out to her. She sat down gently beside him and put her hand on his shoulder, moving her fingers to gently stroke the back of his neck. His neck felt rigid with tension and as she tried to soothe away the pain, Tom leaned fractionally toward her hand and his body relaxed.

He closed his eyes. “I still won’t cry,” he told her, gulping back his words, and then a faint smile trembled on his lips. “You know how that feels, don’t you, Hol?” The smile was fleeting and the despair quickly returned to his features. “I won’t let go. I can’t let go.” He leaned forward, almost as if he was trying to curl himself up into a ball. His head rested against the glass in his hand and he rolled it across his forehead as if trying to soothe his thoughts. “No,” he whispered through clenched teeth. “No!” he repeated, his words coming out as angry sobs. “I won’t cry.”

Holly wrapped her arms around Tom tighter and tighter, holding on to him, willing him to feel her next to him. His whole body shuddered and the first tears fell, softly, silently marking the breach in the dam that he had built against his grief. Then the heaving torrent of tears came, tears that even Tom couldn’t hold back.

His body was wracked with pain and the untouched drink in his hand slopped around him, spilling onto the floor. “I can’t even drink myself into oblivion!” he cried, discarding the glass on the floor next to the bottle.

“You’re going to be all right, Tom,” Holly told him, but she too felt a huge wrenching in her chest. She could feel the pressure of a lifetime of tears building inside her and each of Tom’s sobs felt like a hammer-blow against her own emotional walls. “Let out the pain; don’t hold on to it. Let it go,” she said, giving Tom advice that she had refused to take herself.

“I love you, Holly,” Tom stammered. “I never told you enough how much I love you. I wish I could go back and tell you how much I love you just one more time, just once. I still love you, Holly. I always will.”

As the sobs slowly subsided, Tom’s grief spent for now, there was the sound of a ticking clock echoing across the room. Tom rocked gently back and forth and Holly continued to cling onto him as if he were the baby that she hadn’t been able to hold. Her chest felt heavy and her body felt drained. Then Tom’s body froze as another sound cut through the air. Libby was crying. She had been woken up by her father’s sobs.

Holly felt her heart tug at the sound of Libby’s cries, but the wrenching in her chest was also the moondial pulling her backward in time. Her precious baby’s cry echoed in her ears until all that was left was the soft whisper of a summer night’s breeze.

6

I
n the days that followed the full moon, Holly surprised herself at how well she managed to function. She was so completely overwhelmed by the raft of emotions after her latest vision that she was numb with shock. She couldn’t begin to make sense of her implausible and impossible journey into the future, so she didn’t even try. Phone calls with Tom were as sweet and carefree as they had ever been, and for once Holly felt no guilt. She was in utter denial and, if she was lying to anyone, it was to herself. She was doing fine and she didn’t need to make sense of what had happened to her; she had her five-year plan and one day she would have the list completed and would look back and laugh at her brush with insanity.

For the most part, Holly was left to her own devices. Billy had already finished the main construction of the conservatory and had moved on to other jobs while the plasterwork dried out. Sam Peterson had been in touch, desperate for Holly to complete the art works she had promised him for the gallery, and she assured him she could supply him with new stock. In fact, Holly was more than willing to spend time in her studio, concentrating her mind on her work and especially work that didn’t have anything to do with motherhood. Mrs. Bronson’s commission was left untouched.

It was only on the Sunday morning after the full moon that Holly’s blessed isolation came to an end. Jocelyn was due for their usual brunch date. Holly didn’t even consider putting her off and instead went out of her way to make the morning picture-perfect. She decided to bake Jocelyn a cake.
What could be more normal than baking a cake?
she thought to herself with a fixed smile that was starting to make her cheeks ache. Holly suspected she wore this false mask even in her sleep.

Half an hour before Jocelyn was due to call, the cake was in the oven and Holly was making the toffee sauce. She had made this cake before under the watchful eye of Tom’s mum and, if Holly were being honest, Diane had done most of the work. It had looked simple enough, but as soon as Holly took her eyes off the stove, the toffee sauce began bubbling over and after that, all hell broke loose.

By the time Jocelyn was supposed to arrive, Holly was cowering in a corner of the kitchen with her knees drawn up to her chest and her head buried. She had spent days retreating from the future and now she couldn’t even deal with the present, so she withdrew even further into the past.

Memories of her childhood came flooding back, taking her to a time when cowering in a corner had been the norm. Sometimes it was to block out the alcohol-fueled arguments between her parents, but there were other times, too. Holly had learned quickly to hide away once one of her mother’s parties was in full swing, but sometimes the parties lasted days and she would have to leave the safety of her bedroom to sneak downstairs to find something to eat. Mostly she was lucky, but if her mother caught sight of her, the party atmosphere would freeze around them and she would lurch drunkenly toward her daughter. To her guests she would appear the caring parent, taking her daughter to one side to check on her welfare, but the loving hands she placed on Holly’s arms dug deep into flesh and the inquiring look on her face could not hide the scowl. In a barely audible snarl she would hurl abuse at the terrified child while Holly begged to be released. But her mother wouldn’t let go, not until Holly was crying like a baby; only then would she leave her daughter to shrink into the nearest corner. Her mother would walk away laughing, telling guests that her child had broken, that it had sprung a leak and could she send it back for a replacement. The room would erupt into laughter and Holly would curl herself tightly into a ball and try to staunch her tears. There she would stay until someone would take pity on her—usually a stranger, never one of her parents—and take her hand, giving her a brief escape route from the crowd. Holly would scurry upstairs to her room where she would bury her head beneath her pillows in an attempt to block out the noise, especially the laughter.