I edge my way towards a bed in the far corner of the room. My mother is intubated, a ventilator doing her breathing for her. Her face is pale, her skin rice-paper thin. A blush of broken capillaries on her cheek hints at the drinking problem that has plagued her for most of her life; a dependency that escalated after she was cast out of her beloved Plymouth Brethren because of her younger daughter’s sin. A tiny vein in her neck pulsates rhythmically. Everybody wants to live.
‘Mum?’ I lean forward to whisper. This place is too eerie, too quiet, for normal conversation. ‘It’s me, Katie.’ Her eyelids flicker but there’s no response. I check her stats. Decent oxygen, steady heart rate, blood pressure good. I reach forward and take her hand – something I haven’t done for many years. ‘Mum, it’s Katie. I’m here.’ I think I feel her hand grip mine, but reason that it’s probably an involuntary motor response. Her perpetual pinched expression is gone, and she looks almost pretty. Was she ever pretty? On the mantel at our house in Cornwall is a family photo from when I was small and we were all still a family. My father, large, imposing but still with a sense of playfulness around the eyes, rests a hand on my shoulder. My mother, the stern matriarch, stares resolute into the camera. My sister Grace and I, pale and blank faced, are clearly doing exactly as we are told.
‘I’m going to go now, Mum. I expect Tam needs feeding.’ My throat feels tight and I’m having trouble swallowing. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow.’
It takes less than an hour to reach the bridge and cross into Cornwall. Following the road that echoes the curves of the River Tamar, I arrive in Calstock just after midnight. I park my Mini in the shadow of a railway viaduct that arches high above my mother’s terraced cottage, and, for the first time in hours, I relax. Moonlight shimmers on the river opposite, and the cloying scent of honeysuckle drifts in through the half-open car window. Forcing myself from the car, I head towards the house. The wrought-iron gate gives a familiar whine as I pull it shut and make my way into the tiny front courtyard. The wisteria, which has framed the doorway for as long as I can remember, is now overgrown, the gnarled branches jealously entwining themselves amongst my mother’s prize-winning climbing roses. The door itself, once a bright periwinkle blue, is chipped and faded; the wall lantern which hangs in the alcove, dark. I fumble for the front door key, grateful for the glow of a nearby streetlight. My hand trembles as I slip it into the lock and push open the door.
‘Give me strength,’ I mutter, before crossing the threshold into the gloom. I grope for the light switch, jumping back when my fingertips graze something slick and furry. Switching on the light, I find it’s the fur collar of my mother’s old winter coat hanging on the rack. I slip my hand into the pocket to check for a spare key for Adam, and my knuckles disappear deep into the thick wool. I can feel coins, a sweet wrapped in sticky paper, and something rectangular, smooth, and shiny; paper. Or is it cardboard? Holding it up to the light, I see that it’s a photograph of my sister, Grace, and me, taken many years before, when I was nine and Grace nearly thirteen. It’s a series of photo booth shots of the two of us smiling, posing, sucking our cheeks in like models. Grace, as always, is in the foreground, dwarfing me – I’m little more than one eye and half a cheekbone.
I slip the photos into my pocket and glance into the front room. The old settee is still there, now covered with a throw, as well as the two high-backed Queen Anne chairs that we were forbidden from sitting on as children. Behind that lies a small display cabinet of glass animals my mother started collecting not long after she had been ostracised by her fellow Brethren; forcibly cut off from all communication with former church members, family and friends because of the scandal of my teenage pregnancy.
I carry on into the kitchen, a narrow strip of white that hums in the fluorescent light. As I near the back door, the room widens out just enough to allow for a small expandable table. Once there had been room for four chairs, enough to suit a small family, but time and circumstance mean that only a single chair remains. I run my fingertips along the faded Formica countertop. There is no well-used spice rack or matching tea and coffee canisters, only a single jar of decaf and a stack of yellowing newsletters from the local community centre. The sound of a cat’s high-pitched whine draws me to the back door.
‘Tam,’ I call to my mother’s bad-tempered tabby, ‘is that you?’ I slip off the safety chain and turn the latch. The rusty lock groans in protest and from somewhere in the past comes the sound of voices.
‘Open the door, Kat.’
I am twelve and Grace has just turned sixteen. It is two in the morning and I have been awoken by the sound of pebbles hitting my bedroom window. I come downstairs, push aside the net
