The Lake

If I hadn’t made the first move – a colossal effort – I doubt I would have ever heard from my mother again.

4
I wake early, Michael’s hoodie still clutched against my chest. The morning is grey and overcast, filling the room with a thick, sludgy light. It takes a few seconds for me to remember where I am. I switch on the bedside lamp, and its soft glow momentarily forces away the gloom.
After a quick shower I wander down to the kitchen. Tam is waiting for me by his food bowl. I scan through the pantry for cat food, to find only a single remaining tin. As I struggle with the ring pull, the cat’s hungry cries fill the room.
‘Okay, okay,’ I empty the contents into his bowl. I even dare to give his tortoiseshell-coloured head a gentle stroke. ‘I guess it’s just you and me for now.’
I take my cup of black tea – given that there’s no milk, bread or even crackers in the house I have to wonder what she lived on – and finally get down to what I’ve been putting off since last night. I ring Grace.
‘Hi, Kat!’ Grace is her usual breezy self, probably relaxing in bed while Simon makes a full English for her and Ellie.
‘Grace, it’s about Mum.’
Time seems to suspend itself in her silence.
‘What’s happened?’
‘She’s had a stroke. She’s in hospital.’
‘What?’
‘Deep breaths, Grace. Long and slow.’
In the background I can hear her daughter asking what’s wrong.
‘Everything’s fine, Ellie. Go downstairs and eat your breakfast.’ Grace exhales deeply and I hear a door click shut in the background. ‘It’s not fine though, is it, Kat.’
‘She’s on a ventilator.’
‘Shit.’
‘Her stats were good when I saw her last night.’
‘I should come.’ Grace’s voice is beginning to sound panicky. ‘Simon’s leaving on a business trip tonight and won’t be back until Tuesday. I’ll have to arrange cover at work. Maybe Ellie can stay with friends, but I’m not sure—’
‘Easy, Grace.’ It’s hard to believe I’m giving the advice for once. ‘The MRI and the other tests this morning should indicate what the …’ I pause, uncertain of how to phrase the next statement, then realise there’s no point in holding back, ‘what the damage is.’
My sister begins to cry.
I force my own emotions deep inside, into that place I rarely choose to go. ‘Adam and I are meeting with the consultant this morning. I’ll let you know everything as soon as I can.’
‘I’ll get to Devon as soon as possible. I just need to sort out teaching cover.’
‘Don’t worry, Grace.’ Then, lying with an ease that surprises me, I add, ‘Everything will be fine.’
It’s still an hour before it’s time to leave for the hospital. I decide that if I’m going to be sleeping in the guest room for the next few nights, I might as well make myself useful and tidy up a bit. I pick through the donation bags by the bed: motheaten cardigans, old slippers, some faded pillowcases. The books on the floor are more surprising: romance and historical fiction; clearly charity shop finds, as scribbled in pencil on the yellowing first pages are various prices, ranging from ten to fifty pence. My mother was always a stickler for a bargain, but romance? As Brethren, her reading material would have been censored. Just authorised scriptures and an approved version of the Bible. Novels, magazines, and newspapers would have been strictly forbidden. And even after the Brethren had withdrawn from us, essentially excommunicating us at every level, my mother would still follow church customs and practices, including only reading the approved texts. As a die-hard fundamentalist, she even insisted that I kept all my university Biology and Chemistry books out of her sight. Evolution was heresy after all. Now, spread out before me on the worn carpet were Rosamunde Pilcher, Barbara Cartland, Catherine Cookson, and novels from other authors with titles like Lord of the Scoundrels that I had never heard of before. When did all this happen?
I tidy the donation bags away in the corner and stack the paperbacks next to the bed. The suitcases are odd; out of place. My mother never left Cornwall. She didn’t even come to Exeter to attend my wedding to Adam. Why on earth would she have a collection of suitcases? I begin sorting through them, deciding to stack two smaller ones, Russian doll-like, inside the largest. I flick the latches and dust fills the air. Tam, who has been watching my efforts from the windowsill, lets out a sneeze, and I jump.
I look inside the suitcase. My eyes register it, but my brain can’t compute. A familiar, desperate panic floods my brain. The suitcase isn’t empty. Inside sits a black rucksack, the words Animal stitched across the front in grey lettering. I feel my heart rate quicken and force myself to take a few calming breaths. The last time I saw this rucksack it was in the box of Michael’s things I had collected from Edgecombe Hall after his death. Unable to face dealing with it at the time, I had left it at my mother’s house for nearly six months. Could she have taken it during that time as some sort of keepsake?
I carefully remove the artefact from its hiding place and lay it on the bed in front of me. As I try to open it, the zip seizes, and for a moment I wonder if the water rusted the metal.
Then I remember.
It wasn’t on the lakeside with Michael the night he drowned. The few things he did leave behind – t-shirt and jeans, his wallet still in the back pocket – had been carefully folded and placed on a rock by the water’s edge. His new Vans, tied together, had dangled from a nearby branch, and his iPhone was in the back pocket of his jeans.
This is all beginning to feel like too much, but I push back the pain and carry on. I reach inside the bag, curious, fearful