I sit in a traffic queue, radio on, but all I hear is Elsa’s voice.
“Julie, it’s Elsa. From Fenby.”
As if I could forget the woman who brought us birthday presents, collected us from school, and who told me about bras, periods, and contraception (albeit in the sketchiest terms) when Dad was too squeamish for the task.
“Julie, you need to come home. I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll just come out with it. Your dad’s dead.” She paused. “He collapsed in the garden this morning. I’ll stay with Pippa until you get here.”
“Thank you.”
“You will come, won’t you?”
“Yes.”
Ten years and they jerk me back with one phone call.
The journey takes an hour longer than I expected. Oh, England, my sceptred and congested isle. I’m not sure if I’m glad of the delay or it’s making my dread worse.
The lane is in dire need of resurfacing so I have to slow down to navigate the potholes. I turn into the drive. It’s lined by overgrown bushes. I stop out of view of the house and walk the rest of the way. I’m not ready for Pip and Elsa yet.
The Beeches should be handsome. It’s crying out for love. Someone should chip off the salmon-pink stucco and take it back to its original red brick. The garden wraps around it on three sides, widest at the rear. I head there first.
The crow palace is the altar of the childhood rituals that bound us. It looks like Dad’s lavished more love on it than the house. New levels have been added and parts of it replaced.
I stoop to pick something up from the ground. I frown as I turn it over and read the label. It’s an empty syringe wrapper. Evidence of the paramedics’ labours. The grass, which needs mowing, is trampled down. I think I can see where Dad lay.
A crow lands on the palace at my eye level. It struts back and forth with a long, confident stride as it inspects me. Its back is all the colours of the night. It raises its head and opens its beak wide.
Caw caw caw.
It’s only then that the patio doors open and Elsa runs out, arms outstretched.
Job done, the crow takes flight.
Elsa fusses and clucks over me, fetching sweet tea, “For shock.”
“What happened to him?”
“They think it was a heart attack. The coroner’s officer wants to speak to you. I’ve left the number by the phone.”
“How can they be sure? Don’t they need to do a post-mortem?”
“They think it’s likely. He’s had two in the last three years.”
“I didn’t know.”
“He wouldn’t let me phone you.” I don’t know if I’m annoyed that she didn’t call or relieved that she doesn’t say Perhaps, if you’d bothered to call him he might have told you himself. “Your dad was a terrible patient. They told him he should have an operation to clear his arteries but he refused.”
Elsa opens one of the kitchen cupboards. “Look.”
I take out some of the boxes, shake them, read the leaflets. There’s twelve months of medication here. Dad never took any of it. Aspirin, statins, nitrates, ace-inhibitors. Wonder drugs to unblock his stodgy arteries and keep his blood flowing through them.
I slam the door shut, making Elsa jump. It’s the gesture of a petulant teenager. I can’t help it. Dad’s self neglect is a good excuse to be angry at him for dying.
“We used to have terrible rows over it. I think it was his way of punishing himself.” Elsa doesn’t need to say guilt over your mother. She looks washed out. Her pale eyes, once arresting, look aged. “I don’t think Pippa understands. Don’t be hurt. She’ll come out when she’s ready.”
Pippa had looked at me as I put my bag down in the hall and said, “Julieee,” prolonging the last syllable as she always did when she was excited. Then she slid from the room, leaving me alone with Elsa.
Elsa’s the one who doesn’t understand, despite how long she’s known Pippa.
Pip’s cerebral palsy has damaged the parts of her brain that controls her speech. It’s impaired her balance and muscle tone. It’s robbed her of parts of her intellect but she’s attuned to the world in other ways.
She understands what I feel. She’s waiting for me to be ready, not the other way around.
Perhaps it’s a twin thing.
Pippa stopped speaking for several years when she was a child. It was when she realised that she didn’t sound like other children. That she couldn’t find and shape the words as I did. Her development wasn’t as arrested as everyone supposed. Dad, Elsa and her teachers all underestimated her.
I could’ve tried to help her. I could have acted as an interpreter as I’ve always understood her but I didn’t. Instead, I watched her struggle.
And here she is, as if I’ve called out to her.
Pippa’s small and twisted, muscle spasticity contorting her left side. That she’s grey at the temples shocks me, despite the fact mine’s the same but covered with dye. She’s wearing leggings and a colourful sweatshirt; the sort of clothes Dad always bought for her. That she’s unchanged yet older causes a pang in my chest, which I resent.
Pip looks at the world obliquely, as if scared to face it straight on. She stands in the doorway, weighing me up and then smiles, her pleasure at seeing me plain on her narrow face.
That’s what makes me cry. For her. For myself. I’ve abandoned her again and again. As soon as I could walk, I walked away from her. As we grew older, my greatest unkindness towards her was my coldness. As a teenager, I never wanted to be seen with her. After our twenty-third birthday, I never came back.
“Julieee.”
I put my arms around her. I’ve not asked Elsa if Pip was with Dad when he collapsed, if she sat beside him, if she saw the paramedics at work.
The onslaught of my tears and sudden embrace frighten her and I’m the one who feels abandoned when Pip pulls away.
Ten years since my last visit to The Beeches. Ten years since Dad and I argued. I drove home after spending the weekend here for our birthday. Elsa had made a cake, a sugary creation piled up with candles that was more suitable for children.
Dad rang me when I got back to my flat in London.
“I’m disappointed, Julie.”
“What?” I wasn’t used to him speaking to me like that.
“You come down once in a blue moon and spend the whole time on the phone.”
“I have to work.” I was setting up my own recruitment agency. I was angry at Dad for not understanding that. I was angry that he thought I owed him an explanation. “I’m still getting thing off the ground.”
“Yes, I know your work’s more important than we are.”
“It’s how I make a living. You sound like you want me to fail.”
“Don’t be preposterous. All I’m saying that it would be nice for you to be here when you’re actually here.”
“I drove all the way to be there. It’s my birthday too.”
“You act like coming home is a chore. Pippa’s your sister. You have a responsibility towards her.”
“Yes, I’m her sister, not her mother. Aren’t I allowed a life of my own? I thought you’d be happier that you’ve only got one dependent now.”
“Don’t talk about Pip like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re angry at her. It’s not her fault that your mother killed herself.”
“No? Whose was it then? Yours?”
Those were my final words to him. I don’t know why I said them now.
The following morning’s a quiet relief. I wake long before Pippa. The house is familiar. The cups are where they’ve always lived. The spoons in the same drawer, the coffee kept in a red enamel canister as it always had been when I lived here. It’s like returning to another country after years away. Even though I recognise its geography, customs, and language, I’ll never again be intrinsic to its rhythms.
My mobile rings.
“Ju, it’s me.” Christopher.
“Hi.”
I’m never sure what to call him. Boyfriend sounds childish, partner businesslike and lover illicit.
“The new Moroccan place has opened. I wondered if you fancied coming with me tonight.”
Not: Shall we go? There’s him and me with all the freedom between us that I need.
“I can’t. Take Cassie.” There’s no jealousy in that remark. Over the two years I’ve been seeing Chris, seeing other people too has worked well for us. It’s precisely why I picked a man with form. A player won’t want to cage me but Chris keeps coming back to me, just when I expect him to drift off with someone new.
“I stopped seeing her months ago. I told you.”
I don’t care. It makes no difference to me.
“My dad’s dead,” I say, just to try and change the subject.
“Oh God, Julie I’m so sorry. I’d just presumed he was already dead from the way you talked about him. What happened?”
“Heart attack.”
“Where are you? I’ll come and help.”
“No need.”
“I want to.”
“And I don’t want you to,”
“I’m not trying to crowd you, but may I call you? Just to see if you’re okay.”
“Sure. Of course.” He can call. I may not answer.
I hang up.
“Julie.”
Pippa sidles up to me. We’re both still in our pyjamas. It’s an effort but I manage a smile for her.
“Do you want breakfast, Pippa? Cereal?”
I’m not sure what she eats now. It used to be raspberry jam spread thickly on toast. She tugs on my sleeve and pulls me up.
A trio of swallows hang from her bedroom ceiling. It was sent one Christmas, like all my presents to her for the last ten years, chosen for being flat packed and easy to post. Pippa reaches up and sets the birds in motion as she passes.
It’s the bedroom of a child. No, it’s the bedroom of an innocent. It needs repainting. The realisation makes me wonder what I feel. Our future’s a knife.
“Look.” Pippa beams.
Her childhood collection has grown to dominate the room. It’s housed in plastic craft drawers that are stacked on shelves to a height that Pippa can reach. Her models are lined up above the drawers, on higher shelves.
She used to make them in plasticine. They were crude lumps at first. Now she’s graduated to clay. They must fire them at the day centre. Her years of practice are in the suggestive details. A square tail. The shape of the head with a pinched beak.
They’re crows, over and over again.
Pippa opens one of the drawers and picks out buttons, one at a time, and drops them into my open hand. Each one’s unique, only their colour in common. They’re white plastic, mother of pearl, enamel, stained fabric, and horn. She laughs as they spill through my fingers. The rest of that block of drawers contains buttons, each separated by compartment for the rainbow.
“Pippa, are all these from the crow palace?”
“Yes, birdies.” She mangles some of the syllables but she’s definite.
She shows me more. Her collection is sorted by type of object, or by shape where Pippa was unsure. Coins and bottle tops. Odd earrings. Screws. Watch parts. The tiny bones of rodents, picked clean and bleached by time.
I used to have a collection of my own, the crows left us treasures on the crow palace in return for food. They came with presents every day. I threw mine out when I started high school.
I regret it now, as I sit here with Pippa.
“Here.” She thrusts one of the drawers into my hands.
Something lonely rattles around inside. I tip it out. I hold it up between my forefinger and thumb. A ring designed as a feather that wraps around the finger. Despite the tarnish, it’s lovely—the hard line of the shaft, the movement of the hundreds of vanes and downy barbs.
It’s impossible that it’s here because I’m sure Mum was buried with it. I watched Dad lay out the things for the undertaker: a silk blue dress, tights, a pair of leather heels, a lipstick, and this ring. He put her wedding band and diamond engagement ring in a box and placed it in his bedside drawer. For you, when you get married, as if this was given.
The feather ring was kept to go with her into the grave. We were on holiday when she realised she was expecting. She chose this from an antiques shop in France the same day that she told me. I was thrilled. I think she’d want to wear this.
I close my eyes. Had I imagined that? As I do, the ring finds its way onto the ring finger of my left hand, which goes cold. I can feel the blood in my wrist freezing. I yank it off before ice reaches my heart.
“Where did you get this?” My voice is shrill. “Pippa?”
“Crows,” she says.
I force myself to go into Dad’s room. It’s stifling. Being north facing and a dull day, the poor quality light brings out the green undertones in the patterned gold wallpaper. The dark, heavy furniture makes the room crowded and drab.
Everything’s an effort. There’s something about being back here that’s put me in a stupor. I’m procrastinating about everything.
Looking through Dad’s things should hurt but it doesn’t. It’s like rifling through a stranger’s personal effects for clues. He was an unknown entity to me because I didn’t care enough to want to find out who he was. Shouldn’t blood call out to blood? Mine didn’t. I felt more for Pip, my dead mother, and for Elsa. Dad’s love was smothering and distant all at once as if I was something to be feared and guarded closely.
I pile his clothes in bin bags to take to the charity shop. I pause when I find box files full of football programmes. I never knew he was a fan. It looks like he went regularly before we were born. It crosses my mind that they might be worth something, but then I chuck them on the pile to get rid of.
It’s only when I’m clearing out the second wardrobe that I find something that piques my interest. There’s a steel box at the back with his initials on it, under a pile of moth-eaten scarves. It’s locked. I spend the next hour gathering together every key I can find, searching drawers and cupboards for them. Nothing fits.
I carry the box downstairs and put it on the kitchen table. It’s too late in the day to take it to a locksmith. I’ll go tomorrow.
Who knew that death is so bureaucratic? I’m relieved there won’t be a post-mortem but there’s still the registering of Dad’s death and meetings with the undertaker, bank and solicitors. Elsa’s a brick, taking Pip to the day centre or over to her place if I have things to arrange.
The future leaves me in a stupor of indecision. I stare out of the kitchen window at where the pond used to be. Now it’s a rockery in the same kidney shape.
What sort of people would have a pond with young children in the house?
The pond was where I found Mum’s body, looking boneless as it slumped over the stones at the water’s edge. I was four. I thought she’d just fallen over. I ran out to help her get up. A jay sat on her back. The bird is the shyest of all Corvids, flamboyant by comparison to its family, in pink, brown, and striped blue. It normally confines itself to the shelter of the woods.
I paused as the wind blew up her skirt, revealing the back of her thighs. Her head was turned to one side. The jay hopped down to look at her face, then pecked at one of her open, staring eyes.
The jay turned as I approached and let out a screech, blood on its beak. Or maybe I was the one screaming. I’d put my hands over my ears.
A shriek comes from the sun-room, next door. I drop my coffee cup, imagining Pippa has conjured the same image. She’d followed me out that day and seen Mum too. By the time my cup smashes on the floor and sends hot coffee up my legs and the cabinets I realise something’s actually wrong.
Pippa’s pressed against the window, shouting and banging with her fists.
“What is it?”
I grab her shoulders but she twists around to look outside again. From here we have an interrupted view of the back garden.
A magpie deposits something on the crow palace, then starts to make a racket. Its blue-black-white colouring reveals its affinities for the living and the dead.
Only then does the sudden whirring motion draw my gaze down to the lawn. The cat’s bright pink collar contrasts with its grey fur. A second magpie is pinned by the cat’s paw on its spread wing. Its other wing is a blur as it struggles. The magpie’s mate flies down and the cat breaks its gaze with its prey and hisses.
I know it’s the natural order of things but I’m sickened and trembling. I open the patio door and clap my hands as if such a banal gesture can end this life-and-death struggle. Pippa’s more decisive, stumbling out and I hold her back for fear she’ll be scratched.
Flat black shapes with ragged wings darken the sky. Ravens. One swoops, catching the cat’s ear with its bill as fierce as pruning shears as it passes over. The cat contorts, blood on its fur, releasing the magpie which makes an attempt at broken flight.
The cat crouches, a growl in its throat. Its ears are flat to its head, its fur on end, doubling its size. The birds are coming down in black jets, from all directions. The cat raises a paw, claws unsheathed, to swipe at its assailants. The ravens take it by surprise with a group attack. One lands, talons clutching the nape of the cat’s neck. It writhes and screams. The sound cuts through me. The birds are like streaks of rain. I can’t see the cat anymore. It’s been mobbed by darkness.
Pippa and I clutch each other. The cat’s silent now. The ravens lift together into the sky and all that remains on the grass are steaks of blood and tufts of fur.