Sara Foster - Beneath the Shadows

As Grace shook her head, Meredith echoed the gesture sadly. ‘You know, it’s such a shame these stories get lost. Why are we so careless that we let our own histories die without even noticing?’

Grace thought of the little she knew about Connie and Bill. After hearing this small snippet of their lives, she couldn’t help but picture them differently – as a young couple struggling to build a life together after the war. Her sense of responsibility towards them grew stronger – and she wasn’t sure she welcomed the feeling.

Meredith was studying her. ‘You seem lost in thought, Grace?’

‘I was thinking about how I nearly threw the book away – and what a loss it would have been. Thank goodness I mentioned it to you.’

‘Well, that book is an unusual one,’ Meredith said. ‘But, you know, if you need any help I’d be happy to give you a hand… Bill worked for my husband Ted for a number of years, so I knew him and Connie quite well.’

Grace pictured the remaining boxes stacked waiting for her. Going through them was a wearisome task, but she wasn’t sure she wanted someone else involved. She needed to make any discoveries in private. Moreover, there was an aloofness in Meredith’s manner, despite her pleasantries, which Grace found unnerving. But she didn’t want to be rude either. ‘Perhaps you could look at the things I put aside,’ she suggested. ‘In case there’s anything you know more about, or think is worth keeping.’

‘Of course,’ Meredith agreed. ‘But I can help you more than that. I’ll go through everything with you. It must be so much work on your own with a small child – I can’t imagine how you’ll get through it otherwise.’

Her persistence made Grace uncomfortable, but she wasn’t sure how to decline. ‘Thanks, but I’m fine for now. Perhaps in the New Year.’

Meredith said nothing, but looked disgruntled as she picked up her knife and fork. They ate in silence for a little while.

‘Do you like it here, Grace?’

The question was asked off-handedly, but Grace felt the air around them thicken with the anticipation of her reply. Not wanting to offend, or lie, she hesitated before saying, ‘I can’t tell yet, to be honest. I’m sure I would like it a lot more if the circumstances were different.’

Meredith nodded as she thought. ‘You know, I often wonder whether this place – the villages, the moors – has a certain mystical quality that draws people back – or one which won’t let them go. Perhaps I feel like that because it’s where my family are from, where we belong. But people often return here. And I don’t know why – since we’re obviously well away from most of civilisation. You and Adam, for instance…’ She looked at Grace carefully. ‘Why did you decide to come here?’

Grace began to cut up more of her dinner to give to Millie, who had wolfed down her first portion and was banging her plate on the table. ‘Adam thought it would be good for us to get out of the rat race for a while – try something different. We both thought so,’ she amended.

‘Well, it’s certainly different to London,’ Meredith said. ‘I often think about what will happen to the village when my generation dies out. Will people stick it out here, ignoring the lure of the big cities, or will it be abandoned? I have a feeling it will become an out-of-the-way holiday destination, and these old houses steeped in history will be nothing more than the temporary homes of travellers.’

Grace bit her lip. It was probably best not to mention that she was considering letting out Hawthorn Cottage as a holiday home.

‘How long was the school open here?’ she asked, hoping to move to a more comfortable topic.

‘It closed down in the late sixties when there were no longer enough children to sustain it. My brood had to get a bus over the hill to Ockton. Did Adam not tell you anything of the history of the village?’

Grace shook her head. I imagined he’d have plenty of time to show me around , she added to herself. ‘I’m not sure how much he knew,’ she said. ‘I don’t think he ever came here until after his mother had died.’

Meredith seemed sombre. ‘Rachel was only eighteen when she left – there were five years between us, but we were good friends,’ she said. ‘Since we were the only young girls in the village, we leaned on each other. I was shocked when she disappeared overnight, without even saying goodbye – although we hadn’t seen as much of each other since I’d got married and had Veronica. Then, all those years later, Adam was back here with his grandparents. I hadn’t even known that Rachel had a child. But, as I said, if you’ve a connection to this place it draws you back in, one way or another. Of course, Adam wouldn’t have lived here that summer if Rachel hadn’t died.’ She paused, then shook her head as though clearing unpleasant memories. ‘Adam was a rather intense young man, I remember that… but I put it down to grieving rather than character. He was terribly young to be without his mother.’ Meredith looked intently towards the picture window as she spoke, as though something was visible to her in the darkness.

Grace felt her curiosity growing. ‘Did you know Adam’s father?’ Adam hadn’t talked about him much – the topic was obviously painful so she had never pressed it.

‘Yes, I knew him.’ Meredith’s mouth tightened into a grim line. ‘Jonathan Templeton – he lived on a farm not far away. Everyone around here knew him – he was quite the catch. Rachel was madly in love with him. From what I’ve learned since, I gather he got her pregnant just before his family emigrated to Australia on one of those ten-pound tickets. So he fled from the responsibility. And afterwards she ran away…’

‘Adam didn’t know much about him,’ Grace confided. ‘He knew his name, and that Rachel ran off to stay with some friends in York when she was pregnant, gave birth to Adam there. When Adam was two she began a love affair that lasted the rest of her life – although she never married the man; they never even lived together. He was well off, apparently, and took care of Rachel and Adam financially. It was only after Rachel died that Adam found out he already had a wife and two children. Adam never spoke to him again after that.’

Meredith had stopped eating to listen, as Grace trailed off. Had a new baby and their return to the cottage triggered unpleasant memories for Adam? He had been so in love with Millie from the first moment he held her. But he must have wished that his mother could have seen her grandchild. And he surely would have dwelled on what it meant to him to be a dad, having never known his real father, and feeling ultimately betrayed by the man who had taken on the role instead. What were his deepest feelings about fatherhood? Where might they have driven him to?

Grace put her knife and fork down, her pulse beginning to race. She picked up a napkin to wipe Millie’s hands, trying to hide her distress, when Meredith set her cutlery down on her empty plate, placed her arms on the table, leaned forward and said, ‘Actually, Grace, there’s something I want to talk to you about.’

Grace stopped what she was doing, wary of Meredith’s purposeful tone.

‘I’d like to buy Hawthorn Cottage.’

‘Oh,’ Grace answered, astonished. She let go of Millie’s hands and sat back. ‘The thing is, I can’t sell it right now, even if I wanted to. Adam put it in joint names, so there are legal issues while he is missing…’

‘I suspected that might be the case,’ Meredith said, without missing a beat. ‘But if you’re interested in my proposition, my son-in-law Stephen is a solicitor – I can ask him to look into it further, see if there’s anything you can do. I’d be happy to make some sort of arrangement. Perhaps rent it now, with a view to buying it in future.’