stare at the necklace. It’s not in any of the photos I have of Mum and God knows I’ve stared at them enough to know.
I pull my phone from my pocket, dialling my aunt’s mobile phone number. It takes a few rings for her to answer.
‘Willow?’ she says, voice curt.
‘Hi. Are you at the cottage?’ I ask.
‘I am.’ She pauses. ‘Well, how did it go?’
‘Not great. The ship’s unstable, they’ve had to cancel the recovery. To be honest, I don’t think I’ll get a chance to dive it again, it’s just too dangerous.’
‘Good. It’s best left alone.’
I suppress a sigh. We’d argued when I’d told her I was going to be part of the dive crew who’d be salvaging the ship. She had this romantic notion that it would be disturbing the dead passengers’ souls, even though all the bodies had been recovered long ago.
‘They found some items though,’ I say, looking at the necklace, ‘including the silver bag I got Mum for her birthday.’
My aunt doesn’t respond for a moment. I just hear her breath, quiet and slow. ‘That’s good,’ she says eventually, sounding a bit choked up. ‘I’d like to see it when you come back.’
‘I’ll bring it with me. There was a necklace inside that I don’t recognise.’
‘She had lots of jewellery.’
‘This one’s unusual though. Ajay thinks it might be two initials intertwined, a C and an N?’ My aunt’s silent again. That silence speaks volumes. ‘Did you see Mum wear it?’
‘No, never.’
‘Then why did you go quiet?’
‘No reason.’ She’s lying. I can always tell when she’s lying, her voice goes up an octave. ‘So if the dive’s cancelled, does that mean you’ll be coming to clean up the cottage with me?’
I think of stepping into my parent’s cottage for the first time in twenty years. ‘I might stay here for a few days actually.’
‘Don’t make excuses. It might be the last chance you’ll get to see it.’
I’ve been trying to forget the fact that I finally relented to putting the house I grew up in on the market. I haven’t stepped foot in there since my parents died. Maybe if my aunt had taken me there after, like I’d begged her to, it might have been different. But she’d insisted it would just upset me. And the more months and years that passed, the more painful the thought of going back there became.
I look down at the necklace. Maybe it’s finally time I go.
Willow
Near Busby-on-Sea, UK
August 2016
I peer up at the large white cottage that was my childhood home until my parents died. It seems to blur into the clouds above, the green of the grass that spreads out behind it and the blue of the sea in front add the only hint of colour.
I walk the stones I used to skip up. They’re overgrown with moss now, barely visible. And those large bay windows, I’d once sat by as I waited for Dad to return from work. But they’re so grimy now, no way anybody could see through them. The rose bushes are still here. They used to be so beautiful, Mum tending to them, dark hair wrapped up in a scarf, lip caught in her teeth. Now they’re overgrown and tangled with weeds.
I haven’t cared for this place.
I breathe in the sharp clear air and remember doing the same as I set off for my first day at school from this very spot, uncomfortable and rigid in my bulky new uniform. I’d stared out towards the sea and realised, even at that young age, the perimeters of my little world were widening. Then Mum had put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed it.
‘Come on then,’ Dad had called out as he held the door to his Range Rover open for me. ‘Time for you to break some hearts at school.’
‘Come on then,’ a sharp voice says right now.
Aunt Hope is standing at the door, arms crossed, an impatient look on her face. Her grey eyes – the same colour as my mum’s – drill into mine. Her long red hair is loose around her shoulders, silver bits threaded through to the ends. I didn’t realise she’d started going grey, but then the last time I saw her was a few months ago, a brief visit to drop in her birthday card and present, an old book of poetry I’d found while visiting Scotland for a dive. She’s wearing one of her eccentric long dresses, blue-green like the sea with pearlescent gems all over.
I lug my bag over my shoulder and walk up the mossy stepping stones towards her. She pulls some keys from her bag and places them in the door. It creaks open and I pause before entering, noticing the slate-grey floor tiles, the beginnings of a long staircase. Memories accost me: me skidding down the stairs with a screech as Dad chases me; Mum greeting me at the door after playing outside.
I step into the house and the warmth of the memory disappears, replaced with the dust and the cold. The awful pain of my parents’ absence hits me in the chest.
‘Dust didn’t have a chance with the housekeeper your father hired,’ Aunt Hope says, marching down the hallway towards a small window in the middle. She yanks the yellow flowered curtains apart, dust billowing around her. The sea is unveiled in the distance, vast and blue. ‘Remember her? All ruffles and disapproving glances. What was her name?’
‘Linda, I think,’ I say, but I’m not really listening to her. I walk down the hallway, taking in the photos on the wall. Mum and Dad on their honeymoon, all tanned and smiling, against some pretty mountainous backdrop. Mum looking down at a newborn me in hospital, face soft with disbelief and love. Another of Dad holding a tiny me curled into his arm, a huge smile on his face. Then the three of us dressed in woolly coats, huddled up together outside this very house in the snow.
I walk up to it, tracing my fingers around my parents’ faces, the grief bubbling inside, almost unbearable.
‘Were they happy here?’ I murmur to Aunt Hope. ‘They looked happy.’
She looks into my eyes a moment. ‘I think they were, yes.’ Then she heads towards the large kitchen as I follow. The white marble floor tiles are now filthy; the pine units streaked. Aunt Hope pulls the sheet off the marble island in the middle of the kitchen, dust making us both cough.
‘Tea?’ she asks, pulling a travel kettle from her bag. I can’t help but smile, typical of my aunt, always needing a cup of herbal tea wherever she goes. I often wonder if that’s all she eats, too, she’s so thin.
I try to peer out of the grimy French windows, catching a glimpse of the willow tree.
‘Still have lots of sugar?’ my aunt asks.
‘Yep.’
She
