‘Yes, I suppose it will need sorting through. All Jane’s lovely things. And Stanley’s books and papers, too. I don’t think she let go of much after his death.’
‘She left it to me. The house, I mean.’
‘Oh, that’s wonderful. It’s a good house, a cracking garden. So, you think you might stay?’
‘I live in Ottawa. My partner is there, and my work.’
‘Of course, of course. Yes, you’ll just be wanting to see it and sort, won’t you? Well, while you’re here, do pop in again. The kitchen does a lovely bit of lunch, if you ever need a meal. Cooking for one can be awkward, can’t it?’ Muriel reached over and straightened a messy pile of golf brochures beside the bell on the desk. ‘But you need the keys and you must be tired. Just arrived, and all that way, too. Ah yes, here they are.’
She found a small brown envelope under the counter and slid it across the map towards me. It looked as if there might be anything inside. A wedding ring. Ashes. Dragons’ teeth. I slipped it away into my pocket. ‘Thank you.’
‘Would a cup of tea help? You must be absolutely shattered. You’ve only just arrived, haven’t you? You have the aeroplane look about you.’
‘I’m just off the bus. I stayed in Edinburgh last night.’
‘Well, you come along through here and I’ll see about some tea. Unless you’d prefer a coffee?’
‘No, tea’s fine. Thanks.’
I followed her through the door at the end of the hallway, past a bar and a lounge with sofas and chairs and then into a larger room with tables set for lunch. White napkins and slate coasters.
‘Sit anywhere you like. Do you fancy something to eat?’
‘No. I’m not sure. I can’t quite fathom what time of day it is.’
‘Travel will do that. You sit down now. You’ll feel better with the tea in you. Sugar, too. It does wonders. And I’ll bring you a scone as well. You look like some bulking up might do you good.’
‘Thank you. That sounds wonderful.’
I chose a small table by the window. My fingers picked at the flap on the back of the envelope and then ripped the paper and shook out the contents into my hand. A heavy mortice key fell into my palm and sat there like a finger bone. No wonder Felicity thought in fairy tales, if this was the key to her childhood home.
My mother’s third birth came in bits and pieces. There were always sliced apples and something about the grass growing outside the cabin. She tried out new versions on me, changing the weather or time of day, approaching everything from a different angle. I liked it best when she began it in the afternoon. The morning story often featured rain and sometimes books left on the lawn. Once, she told me a fox ran across the grass with a vole in its mouth, and a crow shouted down from the trees, startling the fox so she dropped her prize as Felicity sat with me on the porch, watching. I didn’t like that telling at all. But the afternoon story went like this: we were together on the porch, Felicity on a stump stool and me sleeping swaddled in a blanket that Rika had knit, lying in a cradle Bas had carved. The rain was over, and the weather would be dry now, so she sat slicing the apples into rings, then threading them onto garden twine to dry in the wind. I could see her hands doing all this; she did it every autumn. Out on the lake, a loon surfaced and called, and I woke gently, my eyes bright as water. I didn’t cry or make a fuss and all afternoon, the loon sat there on the lake, calling and calling, and Felicity sliced all the apples and not one was wasted. Later, she’d hook the twine over a peg high up on our cabin wall, where the apple rings would grow dark and leathery. Felicity liked saving things to use later, saving up the seasons. I don’t know why this story counted as a birth, but she said it did.
My own birth was a tale she told lightly. When I asked questions, she smiled and said I already knew what I needed to – I had seen Rika working, helping, and I knew what needed to happen. It was like that, Felicity said. Like every other birth. Every mother is strong like that.
But all her counted stories made me wonder how many births I might have. Do you get to decide? Can you make them happen?
MOST VILLAGES AND SMALL TOWNS GROW UP ALONG one main road, which is like a spine or the trunk of a tree, but the road through Aberlady had a sudden dog-leg bend that turned sharply as if to say that’s enough of that, let’s look at the sea now. The wind pushed at my back, rushing me out past the edge of the village towards the house. The tide was coming in and shining waves chased the light over mudflats. In the distance, I could see the bridge now, the end of the shoreline and the beginning of the burn, but there across the road was the house.
Houses play tricks on us, or maybe it’s memory. I remembered the house as enormous: wide rooms, oceans of carpet with rug rafts in front of the fire, vast bookshelves reaching from floor to ceiling, crammed full of books and boxes, and a step stool in the corner. A giant’s chair and footstool and windows full as the sea.
But whenever Felicity spoke about the house – with Bas or Rika or with one of the girls – she called it a minuscule bungalow. I asked once what that meant, and she said ‘A small house. Cramped and with no stairs.’
‘Like a cabin, then?’
‘No. Smaller.’ But Bas laughed, so I didn’t believe her.
Funny how the truth becomes real. From where I stood across the road, the house was both small and strange, sitting low under the tall trees and the whitewash looking too bright in the sunshine. I hadn’t remembered the stepped roofline or the crown-shaped chimney pot, but the cheerful red-tiled roof was familiar. As I approached, crows flew up from the trees beside the road, calling out loudly to each other. They circled in the sky before settling again to their treetops, their nests loose jumbles of sticks in the high forks.
A small lane led from the road down to the house. The front door was hidden behind a half-wall, a sort of L-shaped windbreak. L for Livia. L for love.
Then I heard a sound in the doorway.
A shifting sound behind the half-wall followed by the stillness of someone waiting. I paused. It seemed a quiet village. But the house had been empty for a couple of weeks now. Someone could have found a way in and set up camp. I held my breath. Then I heard the sound of feathers.
Only a bird, then. Well, that was a relief. I waited a moment, and then another, for it to emerge, but when it didn’t, I cleared my throat to startle it. Nothing.
‘Hello?’ A human voice would scare it away, I thought. Still nothing. But then another shift, so I took a step and peered around the half-wall.
A goose filled the space. It was startlingly tall and its long dark neck snaked from side to side, its white chin-strap bright in the shadow beside the door. When it looked over its broad brown back towards me, I balked and stepped back. Weird to see a Canada Goose here, I thought, but maybe it was thinking similar thoughts about me. I raised my arms in a sort of loose-winged flap and made a few hopeful noises, but the goose stayed put. It looked as if it was waiting, but obviously not for me.
‘Go!’ I said, firmly.
And nothing. The bird would not budge. It turned towards the door and looked in through the window, making throat-clearing sounds. The key felt heavy in my pocket, but I walked back down the path, sat on the low stone wall at the end of the garden and dug an apple out of my pack. Banished.
The wind blew through the tall grasses on the verge. Grey clouds gathered out at sea. By the road, tulips nodded heavy purple heads, and I wondered if they’d been Gran’s idea. Did she fling out a few bulbs, let them fall where they might and bury themselves to wait for spring? I could imagine that. I could almost