Feeling her way into motherhood, lost inside the warmth of baby skin, breathing only Eva’s milky breath, living in the slate depths of her eyes, Clara hardly noticed the landscape. The house had been perfect: a stone fortress against the rest of the world–a place where they would be safe.

  23

  I have the stub of Billy’s pencil left. My most precious possession. I’ve been drawing over the walls of the pagoda between wires and pipes. There are pictures of seals, a boat in a storm. I’ve drawn Billy fishing and a close-up of my wrists bound with rope. There’s an illustration of me washed up on the beach, with Billy crouched above. I’m drawing a rabbit in a trap at the moment. These are my cave paintings. I wonder if anyone will find them in months or years to come and follow the story with their finger, understanding what happened to me.

  Billy stands with his hands on his hips watching me. ‘I’m not that ugly,’ he complains.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, not taking my eyes from my drawing, ‘you are.’

  ‘You’ve made me look like a bloody Yeti,’ he says matter-offactly. ‘I’m going to do something useful. Check the real traps.’

  I nod, continuing to draw, leaning close to the wall, inhaling musty brick. I sit back on my haunches, squinting at my drawing. I’ve got the dimensions wrong.

  ‘Let’s hope I find one like that for our supper,’ he says, leaning over my shoulder. He breathes through his mouth, examining the picture. The tickle of his beard rubs the tip of my ear.

  I listen to the sound of metal scraping in the padlock. He’ll be gone for a while. There are several traps, all made with wire and nails, placed under the gorse bushes and close to the fence where rabbits build their warrens.

  It’s not often I have the pagoda to myself. I put the pencil away, tucking it carefully into the deepest part of my pocket. Unfolding myself from the floor, I walk around the edges of the pit, staring around me impatiently, as if there might be an opening that I’ve missed. The interior of the pagoda gapes above me; it must be twenty feet high or more, although I’m uncertain about anything to do with measurements and numbers. The only possible way to climb up is a rusted pull-down ladder fixed high on the wall. I drag the chair over and stand on it. But balancing on my toes, straining to reach as high as I can, my fingertips don’t even graze the bottom rung.

  Billy has left his coat dumped in the corner. If there’s an empty paper bag or scrap of paper inside it, I could scribble out a note, hide it in one of the plastic bottles and somehow leave it hidden in the shingle the next time we go to the beach. I kneel beside the coat and search the pockets, but there are no bits of paper, just the tin that he keeps his letters in. It’s old and rusted, a cigar tin with gold lettering peeling away. I click open the lid, releasing a rich brown tobacco smell. Pale blue letters are packed close inside. I pick one up, fingering creases worn thin and fragile with constant folding and unfolding.

  My eyes slide across sentences, devouring words… ‘the fellas in your brick sound like good lads. You watch their backs and they’ll watch yours… here’s a quid for Mr Chuggy… heard about the bomb on the radio… thank god you weren’t in the pub… sorry for your loss, lad. Reckon we don’t know how hard it is. Only numbers on the telly while people are eating their tea. It’s you lads that see the blood and gore.’

  The same slanted writing covers every sheet. I check the signatures. ‘Gramps.’ I like the way Billy’s grandfather writes. He seems kind. And he doesn’t appear to be talking to someone who is mad or evil. Billy was telling the truth: he was a soldier, and he fought in Northern Ireland. It sounds like a normal soldier’s life. There is nothing about prison. Some of the letters aren’t completely covered with writing. There are tempting blank spaces that I could use for a note, but there’s no way I could take one without him noticing. He re-reads them constantly.

  The sound of pebbles clattering makes me start. Quickly, I refold the letters, swearing as my shaking fingers accidentally rip one of them. Trying to remember the order the letters went in, I slip them on top of each other, snapping the lid into place. Then shove the tin back into his coat pocket, dropping the coat on the floor where he left it.

  As the key turns in the lock, I’m sinking onto my blanket, folding my legs under me. My heart is thundering. I compose my face, breathing through my nose.

  Billy glances at me suspiciously. ‘Not drawing? What have you been doing?’

  ‘Oh, filing my nails, chatting to friends, reading a magazine… you know,’ I force a smile, ‘the usual.’

  A rabbit dangles from his hand; he throws it over and it lands with a sickening slump next to me.

  ‘Sort it out,’ he says, ‘we’ll have it for supper.’

  ‘I need the knife.’ I keep my voice neutral.

  He stares at me. I suppress a shudder, rolling my shoulders casually. ‘Can’t do it without.’

  He pads over holding out the knife. My fingers are clammy as they close around the handle. Billy crouches on the other side of the room. He rolls a cigarette with steady, purposeful movements, never taking his eyes from me. He’s testing me, I think. I must pass the test to make him trust me. I need to encourage him to take more risks, let down his guard more.

  With an intake of breath, I stick the blade into the fur, tugging to rip it open, making a split so that I can find the soft, warm belly. A curve of taut, purple skin appears and I swallow, not wanting to puncture it. I’ve watched Billy do this countless times. I know what to do. I try not to think, averting my gaze, as I push the blade through. ‘Not as expert as you.’ Words snag in my throat, my fingers slippery with blood.

  He takes a long drag of his cigarette, watching me. ‘You’ll slice your fingers off if you don’t look what you’re doing.’

  ‘Where did you… where were you sent,’ I pant with each tug ‘… when you were a soldier?’

  He lets out a stream of smoke. ‘Northern Ireland. Bogside.’

  ‘Oh.’ I look down at the mess I am making. ‘Must have been hard, all those bombs and things…’ I grimace at resisting skin. Creamy fat lapping my fingers, stained fur sticking to my skin.

  ‘It was boring most of the time.’ He clamps the cigarette tightly between his lips, scratches his scalp. ‘Except for the riots. They were fun. Firing rubber bullets into the scum. Yeah,’ he smiles, ‘that was good.’

  He catches my expression. ‘That was what they wanted us to think, to feel–the army, the government. It was a war. Only they wouldn’t call it that. There was a bigger plan, you see. We were all being corrupted, like maggots in a carcass.’ He shakes his head. ‘You can’t imagine what it’s like… to be hated. Women and kids too. Brits out graffitied all over. You never knew what wall was wired to explode, what passing car would fire at you. They chucked fridges out of top-floor balconies on us.’ He picks a strand of tobacco from his lip, frowning. ‘And there we were, trying to fight back with one arm tied behind our backs.’ He hawks phlegm from his throat and spits loudly.

  ‘So why?’ I look away, feeling nauseous, the ripe smell of warm flesh in my nostrils, ‘I mean… what’s that got to do with me… why I’m here…’

  ‘Because… because of her.’

  ‘The voice?’ I lean forwards, my hands on the damp pelt. ‘The one in your dream?’

  ‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘Yes.’ He frowns. ‘I mean the other one. I mean her.’ His eyes glaze. His face has gone slack.

  I open my mouth but he gets up abruptly, dropping his cigarette under a twist of foot. He stands over me. ‘Hand me back the knife. You’re making a pig’s ear of it.’ He holds out his hand, fingers curled and ready. ‘Enough talk now.’

  I tighten my grip on the knife and think for a second of lunging forward, stabbing him in the leg. Severing an artery. There must be an artery somewhere inside the bone and muscle. I am hazy about the workings of the human body. Faith would know. But I can’t anyway. I’m a coward. The thought of it makes me faint. I can hardly skin the rabbit.

  I thought I was a fighter. But I’m not. I am useless. My little sister would be better at this than me. My legs are jelly-weak as I hand the knife over. He picks up the half-skinned rabbit, sucking in through his teeth and shaking his head.

  I know better than to press him when his mood darkens, but I need to who know ‘she’ is. Maybe she’s a girlfriend? If I can find out then perhaps I can reason with him, get him to understand that he’s making a mistake. Whoever she is, I’m not her.

  24

  1967–68

  By six months Eva had grown fat and smiley, with sturdy brown limbs that looked so tender and inviting that Clara could almost sink her teeth into them. Eva’s thatch of hair had fallen out to be replaced by glossy curls. She still refused to sleep at night, writhing in her cot and clinging to Clara’s hand. Clara would lie on the floor, holding the small hand through the bars of the cot, waiting patiently for her breathing to change.

  By then Clara and Max had moved to Suffolk. They were exhausted from the efforts of packing up the flat, settling into Holt House, unpacking endless boxes, painting walls and hacking through the overgrown garden. Max was also stressed from starting up an office of his own, his only employee a nearsighted secretary. And of course they were both sleep-deprived. In the dark winter evenings they often gave in to the temptation to drink a glass of wine, slumped at the kitchen table, fingers curled around glasses, exchanging details of their days in between yawns with Eva at last settled for a few hours.

  ‘I’ve been sorting out papers in the study,’ Clara said one evening. ‘Our marriage certificate. Eva’s birth certificate. Don’t we have some papers somewhere to do with the adoption?’

  Max frowned. Rubbed his finger along the edge of his glass. ‘No,’ he admitted slowly. ‘We don’t have anything in writing because we didn’t go through an agency.’ He blinks. ‘It was unofficial.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Clara paused, the taste of Chablis souring on her tongue. The kitchen pulled shadows into corners. Wind rattled the old windows.

  ‘Clara, you know all this; I told you. That’s how it happened so quickly. Why Eva was so young when we got her.’ He shifts on his chair. ‘I paid them a donation. That’s what they called it.’ He frowned, pulling his ear. ‘I signed a book. Put my name and address next to Suky’s name. It was like hundreds–I don’t know, thousands–of other unofficial adoptions. There are no legal documents.’

  ‘But how can we prove she belongs to us?’ Clara sat back in her chair, her eyes wide. ‘We should have papers, shouldn’t we?’ She leaned forward. ‘Make them up,’ she hissed, her heart racing. She pushed her glass away. ‘You’re a solicitor. Fake them.’

  ‘I can’t.’ Max shook his head. ‘I can’t do that. I’m not a criminal, Clara.’

  ‘What if that girl’s family wants Eva back?’ The possibility screams inside her like a siren. She has to stop herself from shouting. ‘What then?’

  Max set his mouth in a line. ‘They won’t.’ He tries to take her hand, but she pulls it into her lap. ‘Look, I’ve thought about this already. It was them that put her in that place, for God’s sake. Locked her away. Charles said that they told everyone she’d moved abroad. They were ashamed of her.’ He raked his fingers through his hair. ‘Why would they want her child–the baby they were forcing her to give away?’

  ‘Forcing?’ Clara tensed her jaw. ‘I thought you said she wanted us to have the baby?’

  Max cleared his throat. ‘She did. She wanted her child to go to a good home. But… she didn’t have a choice. I got the feeling that a lot of the girls there wanted to keep their babies. It was a production line, Clara.’ He glanced at her, then down at the table. ‘Babies being given away for money. Nuns taking cheques, handing babies to strangers. It was wrong. But we were desperate. Then Suky died. That sealed it for me, because I’d made her a promise. I promised her we’d love her child.’

  When Max had first told Clara that he’d found a baby to adopt, Clara’s aching body had softened, the rigid craters of herself relaxing and expanding with relief. She was going to be a mother. She’d heard the tremble in Max’s voice as he’d told her the facts. But the only details that Clara had fastened on were that she’d be able to hold her new baby when it was a few weeks old.

  Clara wishes she’d listened more carefully. She has a new fear. The fear that Suky’s family might one day arrive on their doorstep to claim Eva as their own. She returned to the subject several times over the months, asking Max to forge the paperwork. But every time he shook his head. When pressed, Max told her wearily that he’d made an oral agreement in good faith with Suky and Charles. He had signed the register of removals. They had Eva’s birth certificate. He kept repeating these facts as if they were enough.

  Winter in Suffolk had been an endurance test. The house creaked, tiles slid loose under the onslaught of winds, the roof leaked; Clara couldn’t seem to get warm however many clothes she wore. When the river banks flooded, the garden became a bog, water seeping under the kitchen door. The marshes were sludge-grey under a bleak canvas sky. There were wild storms that turned the sea black, sweeping inland flattening trees, slamming doors and knocking fences over. Eva had a cough and a chest infection that dragged on and on. Clara crouched over the cot at night, her coat heaped on her shoulders, shivering in the dark, terrified that Eva’s hacking cough would stop her breathing.

  The relief of March came. Buds began to open, sticky hearts unclenching. There was new colour on the ground, sea lavender blooming in purple patches. As the month went on, daffodils and crocuses grew in bright clusters in the garden, catkins feathering the willow tree. Clara woke on 30th March, Eva’s first birthday, and looked out of the window towards the sea. The sun was a silver circle, carrying the ghost of winter in it, a memory of mist and ice. ‘At last,’ she thought, ‘things will be different now. Better.’

  Eva had just learnt to walk. The narrow, dank path close to the house was a soft place to fall, and full of interesting things to examine: earwigs and the slow gleam of slugs and spiders’ webs wrapped in pale tunnels through a dense tangle of bramble and nettles. Clara walked behind, arms out to catch her if she fell, watching Eva noticing a curl of bindweed or the movement of light on a leaf, her fat fingers reaching for each new object, wide-eyed.

  ‘Let’s go home.’ Clara picked her up, holding her squirming body close. ‘After your nap there’s birthday cake for tea, sweetheart. Daddy made it. You’ve never tasted chocolate before.’

  On the walk back to the house, Eva sighed, moving her thumb into her mouth, her head drooping onto Clara’s shoulder. Clara’s arms ached from holding the slack body, her child growing heavier against her with every step.

  There was a car she didn’t recognise parked outside the house, a shiny grey BMW. Clara felt a tightening inside her chest. She had the urge not to go in, but to turn on her heel, walk away quickly down to the sea, with Eva tucked inside her coat.

  As she opened the door, Max met her in the hallway. ‘Darling,’ he touched Eva’s lolling foot, ‘we have a surprise visitor. Suky’s brother.’ His voice was thin, but loud enough for someone in the sitting room to hear it.

  Clara widened her eyes. ‘How did he find us?’ she mouthed.

  ‘The phone book, probably.’ His voice dropped, his face suddenly slack. ‘M.J. Gale Solicitors and Co.’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t want him to see her,’ she whispered urgently. ‘Max, what if he’s come to take her?’

  Max was pale under his tan but he put his hand on her shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. ‘We mustn’t panic. I’m sure he’s just come to visit her. It’s understandable. His sister’s child.’

  Clara held the heavy bulk of Eva’s sleeping body closer. ‘Well, it’s her nap time. I’m going to put her down.’ She frowned. ‘If he’s come to see Eva, he’ll have to wait for her to wake up.’

  Grace was in the hall putting her coat on. She’d come over for birthday tea; she patted Clara’s arm. ‘I won’t stay. I’ll leave you to it. Don’t want to get in the way.’ She glanced into Eva’s sleeping face and back at Clara. ‘Chin up. I’ll be in the cottage if you need me.’

  ‘Don’t go…’ Clara held onto her thin hand. ‘Grace, I’m frightened.’

  ‘She’s your daughter. Remember that.’ And she was gone, the door closing softly after her.

  Upstairs, Clara laid Eva’s limp body in her cot, tucking a blanket around her, smoothing back the damp curls from her forehead. Eva’s eyelids flickered and her thumb slid from her mouth, leaving a trail of saliva. ‘My daughter,’ Clara repeated softly. A smell of baking wafted from the kitchen, filling the house with a damp, sugary scent. Clara spent a moment in the bathroom, dabbing her lips with colour, combing her hair. She straightened her jumper, flattened her hands over her hips. She stared at her pale face in the mirror. What does he want? She turned away. Her palms were sweating. She wiped them over her skirt.

  In the living room, a man was rising from a chair. His blonde hair receded from a high, pink forehead. He looked at her with interest; his eyes, she noticed, were biscuity, almost colourless.

  ‘Charles Anderson,’ Max was saying, ‘this is my wife, Clara.’

  ‘You’d better call me Uncle Charlie.’ The man smiled and came forwards. ‘Where’s the child?’

  ‘Eva,’ Clara said. ‘She’s sleeping.’ Clara sat opposite him, folding her feet under her, her hands clasped in her lap. ‘She usually sleeps for about an hour or so.’

  Charles looked over her shoulder sharply, as if Eva might be secreted behind the sofa. He shrugged. ‘So, she’s a healthy baby is she?’ He smiled. ‘All her fingers and toes?’

  Clara glared at him. ‘She’s very healthy, thank you.’

  As he sipped his tea, he took furtive glances around the room. Clara wondered what he thought, what impressions he was getting. They’d only just finished unpacking boxes. Books were arranged in tottering piles on the floor. Clara’s mother’s painting hung over the mantelpiece. Clara knew that it wasn’t a particularly good example of a watercolour. She wanted to explain that her mother had painted it, and was at the same time angry with herself for caring what he thought. She tried to hide the distrust she felt, lowering her eyes. Charles kept up a steady stream of polite talk, telling them that he’d been made a partner at work and recently got married.