Wildest of All Read online

  She had missed this entirely on the day of the funeral. Tears pricked her eyes. It was almost perfection.

  She put the rubbish in a nearby bin a little further up the hill. On the walk back to the grave she noticed something stuck in a small gap between the stone and ground. It was a plastic rose, peach in colour, its stem bent in half. Picking it up, she recognised it as coming from her grandmother’s house. There had been a basket of them that Sissy played with as a child, rearranging them over and over until the styrofoam block that housed them was rendered useless by the repeated stabbing of the roses’ sharp ends.

  Mud and moss coated the fake rose. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a bottle of water and an old tissue and began to clean it. As the dirt fell away, Sissy experienced a sense of usefulness that she hadn’t felt in a long time.

  She placed the rose deep down among the real ones, and remembered how much her mother disliked plastic flowers. Surprising then, that Grammy had been allowed to leave it there. But then memories surfaced of those days after the funeral, when Anne had moved into the house and taken over everything. It was a mistake to believe her mother had control over anything.

  Those thoughts again, spoiling everything.

  Still kneeling beside the flowers, she bowed her head and tried to bring back the sense of purpose she’d felt only seconds before. Her father’s name was etched in gold onto the marble. Peter Donnelly. Loving father, husband, son.

  Even though they’d never married.

  Everything was lies.

  Those thoughts again.

  She took out her father’s letter and looked from it to the gravestone. Much like the photograph of his grave, the letter was something she couldn’t throw away but had no desire to keep. She’d had an idea she could bury it in the soil around him, but the ground was solid and she hadn’t had the foresight to bring anything to dig with.

  Footsteps came up behind her. Keeping her head low, she pretended to pray as she waited for them to pass. Their approach on the gravelled path was slow but grew steadily. At last they stopped right behind her and she was forced to look up.

  The sun was only partially blocked by the figure standing over her. The escaping rays blinded her. She raised the hand holding the letter to shield her eyes, and even then she didn’t trust what she saw.

  They greeted each other almost as strangers. No kiss, no hug, barely a polite smile, but both experienced immense relief at being in the other’s presence at last. A coming home, of sorts.

  It was strange, Jude thought, how they both cried yet remained apart. Perhaps she should do something, reach out to console her daughter, but she was frightened to touch her lest she disturb her and cause her to run off.

  Instead she knelt down, careful to stay at the foot of the grave. The sunlight and her artificial mane of hair gave Sissy an otherworldly quality. Having spent the past several nights by Anne’s bedside, Jude half-wondered if she’d fallen asleep and was dreaming.

  But the tears coursing down the sun-dappled face were too real for it to be a dream. She stared, captivated by the blue of her daughter’s eyes, her puckered lips and trembling chin, and in that moment she experienced again every bumped head and scraped knee, every bad dream and playground fight, and then she found she was on all fours crawling towards her, and she was crying too, and then they embraced and cried together, the way they should have done all that long time ago.

  Dad,

  I’m so sorry that you’ve gone. I can’t really believe it. Gone. You’re gone. I could write it all the way to the bottom of the page and it still wouldn’t feel true.

  I don’t know what it is I want to say to you, except I love you. Thank you for being the best dad ever – even though that does mean I’m going to miss you for my whole life!

  So thanks for that!

  It isn’t fair, Dad. I’m so sorry for you (and for me too, but let’s face it you’re the one who really counts here!)

  You’re so young.

  And Mum’s so young too. Too young to be a widow. I hope you don’t mind if she finds someone else. She deserves to be happy. But I think it will take a long time.

  I promise we’ll never forget you, Dad.

  My daddy.

  Love you to forever and back,

  Sissy xxx

  Together, they ripped the letter into tiny pieces and tucked them into the gap the plastic rose had been caught in.

  ‘Your grandmother was never happy with how they mounted this stone,’ said Jude.

  ‘I know,’ Sissy said, as they walked back down the hill. ‘She told me.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  The Silver Thread of Wildness

  The family had gathered. Susan and Phil and the boys, Danny and the girls, even Lauren had made an appearance. Tall, beautiful, compassionate, she’d kissed Danny’s cheek and held his hand in the waiting room, she on one side, Emma and Lucy on the other.

  Susan rested her head on Phillip’s shoulder, her two eldest boys locked into a game on their phones. Andrew, the youngest, loitered within sight beyond the door, hoping to catch a conversation with someone new. No passer-by was safe from Andrew. Of the three brothers, he was the most exhausting. Always pushing boundaries, breaking rules. Introducing himself to complete strangers, no matter how many times he was warned not to talk to strangers.

  ‘But what if they’re really interesting?’ he would cry, frustrated by the prosaic protections adults tried to foist upon him. He hurled himself upon people like a crashing wave, washing part of them away with every syllable he spoke. Determined, relentless, effective – wonderful qualities for an adult, Susan told herself repeatedly.

  An auxiliary came in and mopped the floor around them.

  ‘Some lad you’ve got out there,’ he said. Anxiety fluttered to Susan’s throat. What had he been saying this time?

  ‘It’s great to have the kids in a place like this,’ the man confided. ‘Gives everyone a lift.’

  Susan relaxed again, as far as she were able.

  Waiting.

  Andrew had disappeared from view. She gave him a moment to come back and then went to check on him. She found him deep in conversation with a young woman with long red hair. It wasn’t until she noticed Jude standing a few feet away that she realised who it was.

  Sissy would have gladly subjected herself to her precocious little cousin’s questions all day long if it would have spared her the gauntlet of her family’s gaze, but it seemed some sort of silent message had been transmitted. One by one they filed through the swing doors to say hello and act as if they had seen her only yesterday. As though all this time they’d been connected by a silver thread.

  ‘I hear you gave up the acting,’ she said to Emma.

  ‘Of course,’ laughed Emma, derisively. ‘I was never serious about that.’

  Lucy opened her eyes wide, a warning to Sissy to drop the subject.

  Trust me, Sissy thought. Great start.

  ‘Andrew, will you come over here and sit down!’ Susan’s sharp voice filled the air.

  The little boy stopped whatever had caused the offence and ran to his mother’s side with his face ablaze. He sat down beside her, popped his thumb in his mouth and nestled in.

  Sissy felt an arm come around her shoulder. The soft, strange, familiar arm of her mother.

  ‘Shall we go and see her?’ she said.

  Once the diagnosis arrived, Anne had surrendered herself with remarkable ease. First of all came the separation of mind from body, which she supposed was the sensible way of going about it, given the amount of pain she was in.

  The spasms, when they came, drove away everything else. Sometimes she remembered the miracle button, but other times she needed help.

  ‘You shouldn’t be in pain,’ Jude said. ‘You press here. See? Like this.’

  And her body would be suffused with relief. She would feel herself float off, like a seed on the wind, destined to land on fertile grounds and begin life all over again. In those moments she
uttered deep sighs of contentment, but gradually the sound of her seemed to come as though from outside. It distracted her and she had to struggle to stay focused on the flight.

  Here was Patrick.

  No, no, no.

  Trapped between two worlds, and no friends on either.

  She thought she was drowning and remembered a time when the city flooded. Water got everywhere, seeped into the shop, spoiled the stock. All those men Patrick brought in to bale. They worked all through the night, hands touching, arms rippling, eyes full of intention, all of them fighting nature in the moonlight.

  Oh, but here was Peter, her newborn. The rock upon which she would build everything, so difficult to come by and never destined to be kept. Her prize and her punishment, all rolled into one.

  Falling.

  When she landed back in the room it was bright and noisy and too full of strangers. She flailed for her beads, felt a gentle hand encircle hers, heard a sweet voice say, ‘Grammy.’

  ‘Pancreatic,’ said a different voice. Familiar. Can’t place it. It was something to do with her but she was just a little bit caught up at the moment.

  Grammy, I’m here. I love you. I always loved you.

  I’m here too, Anne. I love you too. You are loved, you are loved.

  She was swimming through the flood. She had no idea where she was going, or what was up or down. It was all right. It was just the way of it, that’s all. So many possible routes and destinations but no way of knowing anything about them. She felt she’d done this before though. In fact, she had the distinct impression she had always been here, doing this. Everything else was a dream. It wasn’t frightening to swim in the air, or in the darkness. It just was. She was free and natural. She soared with the grace of angels. All she had to do was follow the silver thread and she would come to the right place. It was here somewhere.

  It was here

  and here,

  and here,

  Sissy and Jude travelled together back to the waiting room. For the moment, only they knew the secret of the life lost, and the one still to come. Jude took Sissy’s hand, which was almost identical to her own. Their fingers entwined and everything they’d ever been or would ever be was sealed between them. Baby girl, daughter. Mother, grandmother. Friend, foe. Woman, child.

  They reached the swing doors and paused to observe their family through the glass. Everyone was leaning forward to see Susan’s wildest boy perform a magic trick. Each of them appeared to be absurdly happy.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thank you for reading Wildest of All. Now you’ve finished the book, I’d like to mention my own grandmother who had a similar start in life to Anne. Her mother died when she wasn’t much more than a baby, and the family was split up. She went to live with an ‘Aunt Margaret’ while her brothers went to an orphanage. I believe they were successful in tracking each other down, unlike in Wildest. Beyond that, Anne’s story is fiction. My nana, as I called her, was a profound influence on me when I was growing up. She was tiny in stature, but a giantess when it came to doling out love and encouragement. She took me to my first writer’s group when I must have been aged around ten. I owe her a great deal and miss her hugely.

  In writing Wildest of All, I prevailed upon the talent of and generosity of many people, not least John Kernaghan and Laurie Cairns who provided me with a much-needed hideaway in Brighton where I finished writing the book. Special thanks to Robin Laing, Diane Thornton, and Lee Morgan for many things but most especially for being my research partners in the world of club nights, to Fin and Vince Laing – my research partners in the murky world of mothering, and to Joyce Henderson and Deborah Colvin for keeping me right in East London. Thanks also to Amber Louise Lynch for providing the inspiration for Sissy’s job in Glasgow, Martin St. John and Carl Drake for being my Metropolitan Police consultants, Stephanie Stubbs for her counsel on corporate law, and to Tania Cheston, Vicki Feaver, Amanda McLean, Hilary Hiram, Samantha McShane, Thelma Good, Siobhan Staples, Nick Boreham, Bethany Anderson, Sarah Ward, and Sheila Millar, who all at one point or another offered valuable advice and insight into the development of this book.

  I’m also grateful beyond measure to Lauren Parsons and the entire team at Legend Press for their patience and belief in me, and for steering me in the right direction, and to Donald Winchester, who took a chance on me, and always says the right thing in emails.

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