She shoots me a cold, withering look then leaves the room. I quickly pull my phone from my pocket, Googling ‘Niall Lane’. A photographer’s website appears at the top of the results page. I click on the link and a page with dozens of photos materialises, all of submerged forests, underwater trees or ghostly tree stubs littered across vast beaches. They’re beautiful, eerie and atmospheric.
I click on the ‘About Niall’ page. The description is brief:
Niall Lane is a renowned underwater photographer whose photographs are exhibited around the world. His Charity Collection has won a number of industry awards.
There’s a black and white photo of a rugged-looking man in his fifties. A memory suddenly comes to me of digging up pebbles on Busby-on-Sea’s beach around the time I lost my parents. I try to grasp at the memory before it slips away again. There’s so little I remember from my time with my parents that when a hint comes, I’m desperate to gather it in. I close my eyes, press my fingers into my temples, willing the memory to hold steady.
There! A man. Tall, very tanned, dark hair shaved close to his head. He was dressed in a wetsuit, a camera hanging from his right hand, dark tattoos scrawled all over his arm. I remember him because he grabbed Mum’s arm while they were talking.
It was him. Niall Lane! Many years younger but definitely him.
I click around the site then find a map featuring all the locations where Niall Lane has taken photographs. I peer closer at the map. It’s hand-drawn, small illustrated trees marking the location of various places. Another memory stirs.
I dart upstairs.
‘Where are you going?’ I hear my aunt call up after me.
I ignore her, pulling the loft hatch down and climbing the stairs attached to it. There are only a few boxes up here. I pull the closest one over and open it. Inside are some of Mum’s counselling books – except for one book, old and musty-smelling with a green cover, a fish symbol overlaid on it: Submerged Forests by Clement Reid. I open it and there it is, the map folded in four. I pull it out and unfold it, laying it on the floor. It’s the size of an A5 piece of paper and seems quite old. I take it downstairs and show it to my aunt.
‘Why is there a picture of this on that photographer’s website?’
Her brow furrows as she takes the map. ‘It was your mother’s. She wanted to visit all the submerged forests in the world. Silly notion.’
‘Why does Niall Lane have it on his website?’
‘They used to dive together. He must have taken a photograph of it.’
‘Mum dived?’ I ask, incredulous. ‘Why wouldn’t you tell me? It makes no sense!’
‘We all did. We spent our childhoods by the sea, remember.’
‘So this photographer and Mum used to hang out when they were kids?’
She nods.
‘They must have been close,’ I say.
‘Back then, yes. But they were children.’
‘Then why did Mum have the necklace in her bag the night she died? She wasn’t a kid then.’
My aunt hands the map back to me. ‘Why torture yourself with all these questions, Willow? The past is the past.’
‘It’s my past. Why are you being so elusive?’
‘Honestly, the way you read into things.’
‘And the way you hide things. Like those photos of Mum I found the day I moved out, all those blank sections.’ I scrutinise her face. ‘You’re not being honest with me.’
‘This isn’t an episode of EastEnders, Willow.’
‘Really? You’d make a good actress, the amount of times you’ve lied to me.’
She shakes her head. ‘I can’t listen to this nonsense. I’m going to finish tidying the dining room, your soup’s in the kitchen.’
I don’t sleep all night. I’m in my old room but it’s a ghost of what it once was, the sea-themed wallpaper faded, the cream carpet filthy. So I get up and pace the freezing house. I eventually end up in the garden. It’s very early, mist still a sheen over the grass, the air very still and quiet. There’s a sheet of grey clouds above, one indiscernible from the other. I walk the length of the garden. It seems to go on forever, a two-tier fence running around its edges to mark it from the rest of the land.
There’s a patio area just outside the house that’s overrun with weeds now. A beautiful sundial sits at the centre of the patio and, to the side, a large gazebo with circular benches. The rest of the garden is simple, a long green lawn that’s like a meadow now, grass shin high. Around it, beneath the fence, are tangled roses. And then, right at the end, a huge willow tree that seems to have doubled in size since the last time I saw it.
My heart clenches as I notice the swing swaying below it. Dad made that for me. No big deal for some dads. But it was for mine. He usually got other people to do stuff like that, but he’d sanded down the wooden seat with his own hands, painted it glossy white with red stars then attached the ropes.
I sit on the swing, feet still on ground so I don’t break it as I sway back and forth. I close my eyes, try to imagine Dad pushing me.
Then out of the corner of my eye, I notice something in the tree’s bark. I lean closer and there it is:
Willow and Daddy
1996
The year the ship sank. Sobs build up inside and I put my hand to my mouth.
‘Oh, Dad,’ I whisper.
When I walk back inside, I’m surprised to see my aunt standing at the table. She’s usually an early riser but never this early. She’s looking down at the map I found, her grey eyes glassy with tears. When she notices me, she quickly folds it up.
‘Was Mum serious about visiting all these submerged forests?’ I ask, more gently than before.
‘She was just a kid,’ she says dismissively.
‘Was it the submerged forest off Busby’s coast that sparked her interest?’
Aunt Hope takes a sip of her tea. ‘That wasn’t discovered until we were older.’ She peers up at me. ‘In fact, it was your parents who discovered the forest.’
I look at her in surprise. ‘But I had no idea.’
‘Why does it matter?’
‘Everything to do with my mum and dad matters. That’s why I’m going to try to contact that photographer,’ I say, using my phone to do a web search for contact details. All I get is a generic email address.
Aunt Hope shoots me a cynical look. ‘What good will that do?’
‘He’ll have memories of Mum he can share. He must’ve invited me to his exhibition for a reason. I’ll email him, see if he wants to meet.’
I grab the map from her and unfold it again, taking in all the different locations.
‘And maybe I should to try to visit some of these,’ I say, feeling excitement swell inside. I realise then that the idea has been growing since the moment I saw the map. ‘It can be a homage of sorts, doing something Mum always wanted to do.’ I look up at Aunt Hope. ‘Mum would like that, right?’
Aunt Hope gets a faraway look in her eyes then she shakes her head as though shrugging it off. ‘Fine life you live, isn’t it,’ she says, ‘being able to follow some teenager’s pipe dream at the drop of a hat. I bet you’ve whittled all your inheritance away?’
How typical of my aunt, ruining a special moment. I sigh. ‘Actually, I haven’t.