Kate Morton - The Distant Hours

‘Why – you didn’t say a word!’

Meredith shrugged, focused on her bare feet. ‘I’m frightened of a lot of things.’

‘Really?’

She nodded.

‘Well, I suppose that’s pretty normal.’

Meredity turned her head abruptly. ‘Do you ever feel frightened?’

‘Sure. Who doesn’t?’

‘What of?’

Juniper dipped her head, drew hard on her cigarette. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Not ghosts and scary things in the castle?’

‘No.’

‘Not heights?’

‘No.’

‘Drowning?’

‘No.’

‘Being unloved and alone forever?’

‘No.’

‘Having to do something you can’t stand for the rest of your life?’

Juniper pulled a face. ‘Ugh… no.’

And then Meredith had looked so downhearted that she couldn’t help saying, ‘There is one thing.’ Her pulse began to race, even though she had no intention of confessing her great, black fear to Meredith. Juniper had little experience with friendship, but she was quite sure telling a new and treasured acquaintance that you feared yourself capable of great violence was inadvisable. She smoked instead and remembered the wild rush of passion, the anger that had threatened to rip her apart from the inside. The way she’d charged towards him, picked up the spade without a second thought, and then -

– woken up in bed, her bed, Saffy by her side and Percy at the window.

Saffy had been smiling, but there’d been a moment, before she saw Juniper was awake, in which her features told a different story. An agonized expression, lips taut, brow creased, that belied her later assurances that all was well. That nothing untoward had happened – why, of course it hadn’t, dearest! Just a small case of lost time, no different than before.

They’d kept it from her out of love; they kept it from her still. She’d believed them at first; of course she had. What reason, after all, did they have to lie? She’d suffered lost time before. Why should this be any different?

Only it had been. Juniper had found out what it was they hid. They still didn’t know that she knew. In the end it had been a matter of pure chance. Mrs Simpson had come to the house to see Daddy, and Juniper had been following the brook by the bridge. The other woman had leaned over the railing and thrust a shaking finger, saying at her, ‘You!’ and Juniper had wondered what she meant. ‘You’re a wild thing. A danger to others. You ought to be locked away for what you did.’

Juniper hadn’t understood; hadn’t known what the woman was talking about.

‘My boy needed thirty stitches. Thirty! You’re an animal.’

An animal.

That had been the trigger. Juniper had flinched when she heard it and a memory had dislodged. A fragmented memory, ragged around the edges. An animal – Emerson – crying out in pain.

Though she’d tried her hardest, forced her mind to focus, the rest had refused to clarify. It remained hidden in the dark wardrobe of her mind. Wretched, faulty brain! How she despised it. She’d give up the other things in a flash – the writing, the giddy rush of inspiration, the joy of capturing abstract thought on a page; she’d even give up the visitors if it meant she could keep all her memories. She’d worked on her sisters, pleaded eventually, but neither would be drawn; and in the end Juniper had gone to Daddy. Up in his castle tower, he had told her the rest – what Billy Simpson had done to poor, ailing Emerson; the dear old dog who’d wanted little more than to while away his final days by the sunlit rhododendron – and what Juniper had done to Billy Simpson. And then he’d said that she wasn’t to worry. That it wasn’t her fault. ‘That boy was a bully. He deserved everything he got.’ And then he’d smiled, but behind his eyes the haunted look was lurking. ‘The rules,’ he’d said, ‘they’re different for people like you, Juniper. For people like us.’

‘Well?’ said Meredith. ‘What is it? What do you fear?’

‘I’m frightened, I suppose,’ said Juniper, examining the dark edge of Cardarker Wood, ‘that I’ll turn out like my father.’

‘How do you mean?’

There was no way to explain, no way that wouldn’t burden Merry with things she mustn’t know. The fear that held tight as elastic bands round Juniper’s heart; the horrid dread that she’d end her days a mad old lady, roaming the castle corridors, drowning in a sea of paper and cowering from the creatures of her very own pen. She shrugged; made light of her confession. ‘Oh, you know. That I’ll never escape this place.’

‘Why would you want to leave?’

‘My sisters smother me.’

‘Mine would like to smother me.’

Juniper smiled and tapped some ash in the gutter.

‘I’m serious. She hates me.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m different. Because I don’t want to be like her even though its what everyone expects.’

Juniper drew long on her cigarette; tilted her head and watched the world beyond. ‘How can a person expect to escape their destiny, Merry? That is the question.’

A silence, then a small, practical voice. ‘There’s always the train, I guess.’

Juniper thought at first she’d misheard; she glanced at Meredith and realized that the child was completely serious.

‘I mean, there are buses, too, but I think the train would be faster. A smoother ride, as well.’

Juniper couldn’t help it; she started to laugh, a great hulking laugh that rose up from very, very deep within her.

Meredith smiled uncertainly and Juniper gave her an enormous hug. ‘Oh Merry,’ she said, ‘did you know you’re really, truly and utterly perfect?’

Meredith beamed and the two lay back against the roof tiles, watching as the afternoon stretched its film across the sky.

‘Tell me a story, Merry.’

‘What sort of story?’

‘Tell me more about your London. ’

Dad was waiting when I got in from visiting Theo Cavill. The front door hadn’t even latched behind me when the bell tinkled from his room. I went straight up and found him propped against his pillows, holding the cup and saucer Mum had brought him after dinner and feigning surprise. ‘Oh, Edie,’ he said, glancing at the wall clock, ‘I wasn’t expecting you. Time quite got away from me.’

A very unlikely assertion. My copy of the Mud Man was lying face down on the blanket beside him and the spiral notepad he’d taken to calling his ‘casebook’ was propped against his knees. The whole scene smacked of an afternoon spent musing on the Mud Man’s mysteries, not least the way he was hungrily surveying the printouts peeping from the top of my tote. Although I can’t say why, the devil entered into me at that moment and I yawned widely, patting my mouth and making my way slowly to the armchair on the other side of his bed. I smiled when I was comfy and finally he could stand it no longer. ‘I don’t suppose you had any luck at the library? Old kidnappings at Milderhurst Castle?’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Of course. I quite forgot.’ I took the file from my bag and sorted through the pages, presenting the kidnap articles for his keen perusal.

He skimmed them, one after the other, with an eagerness that made me feel cruel for having made him wait. The doctors had talked to us more about the risk of depression for cardiac patients, especially a man like my dad, who was accustomed to being busy and important and was already on shaky ground dealing with his recent retirement. If he saw a future for himself as a literary sleuth, I wasn’t going to be the one to stop him. Never mind that the Mud Man was the first book he’d read in roughly forty years. Besides, it seemed to me a far better purpose in life than the endless mending of household items that weren’t broken to begin with. I resolved to make more of an effort. ‘Anything pertinent, Dad?’