I decide to take the scenic route back to my mother’s house, avoiding the bridge and following the lanes, where sun-streaked finches dart in and out of blossoming hedgerows. I drive past Yelverton and down through Gunnislake with its steep pines and dour granite churches. In the millisecond flash between trees and houses I catch the occasional glimpse of the moors, the landscape both breath-taking and bleak. I stop at a grocery store and buy eggs, cheese, biscuits, apples, coffee, milk, a loaf of bread, and cat food. I hesitate in the wine aisle, knowing that any more than a glass or two will mean I won’t be able to drive back to the hospital tonight if needed; yet I settle, finally, on a couple of whites, two decent reds, and a small bottle of vodka for courage. If something comes up, I’ll have to get a taxi.
When I finally arrive home, Tam is waiting for me.
‘Don’t worry, you old bugger. I didn’t forget you.’
I feed the cat, pour myself a large glass of red and head upstairs. If my mother is going to be in hospital for a while, she’ll need some things.
I grab one of the suitcases from the Russian doll stack, and head into her bedroom. The room, like the rest of the house, is not so much dirty as unkept. Dust-covered knick-knacks cover almost every available surface, more romance novels are stacked high on her bedside table, and the wardrobe door is wide open, exposing a functional, yet drab catalogue of clothing.
I start in the chest of drawers: nightdresses, underpants, bras, and socks; then include a dressing gown hanging on the back of the bedroom door. I’m about to move to the bathroom for toiletries, when something strikes me. If my mother does successfully regain consciousness, there is one thing I know – no matter what its dubious history – may bring her comfort: her Bible.
I move to the wardrobe. Seeing my mother’s old clothes is sobering. The long skirts and dresses she wore as Brethren are hanging as if ready to be put on once more. On the top shelf are a stack of carefully folded kerchiefs. Brethren beliefs dictate that a woman with an uncovered head causes herself and her community shame, and so she insisted we cover ourselves wherever we went. One more rule; one more humiliation. Nothing makes a teenage girl stand out more than having to wear a long skirt and a headscarf. I reach to the back of the shelf where I know my mother keeps a document box with all her papers.
The box is large, heavy; a ribbon is tied around the middle. My fingers struggle, but I finally pull apart the bow. Inside I find papers: life insurance; pension; mortgage. I find her Bible, and a letter from the Brethren headquarters in Plymouth, postmarked April 2000 – the month after Michael’s birth, formally excommunicating us from the sect. Included, too, are childhood snaps; and surprisingly, a photograph from my university graduation. I push them aside to find a Nokia mobile phone, several years out of date. What was she doing with an old mobile? No matter how much Grace and I tried to encourage her to get one, she always refused.
Lying at the bottom of the box is something else; something black and shiny. It’s an A4 plastic wallet: something you would find as part of any back-to-school kit, along with a pencil case and ruler. What is it doing in here?
The wallet has a slight bulge: there’s something inside. I undo the snap and slide out the contents. It’s a leather-bound notebook. A logbook? I open it, expecting to see a long list of Michael’s training schedules and individual best swimming times. What I find, however, knocks me back so fiercely that my knees give, and I slump to the floor. This isn’t a logbook at all. It’s a diary. Michael’s personal diary.
What was Michael doing with a diary? This can’t be right. Michael was a fifteen-year-old boy; a normal teenager obsessed with technology – not just for social media and gaming, but also for its power to monitor, assess and improve his sporting performance. The idea that he would even think of keeping a handwritten personal diary is one that I find almost unfathomable.
For some reason I think of his MacBook, archived in the loft at home. Recovered from his dormitory at Edgecombe Hall, the police family liaison officer had explained, amongst other things, that the laptop would be forensically searched for any ‘dangerous or suggestive websites’. What did she mean by that? When, a year after Michael’s death, the coroner returned an open verdict, I had confronted that same officer, demanding to know why, if Michael’s death was not deemed an accident, there was no further investigation taking place. She had spluttered and stumbled, clearly uncomfortable with how to respond. I think I had yelled, screamed at her for an answer. I recall people stepping away; gentle words of warning; then Adam beside me, leading, nearly dragging me away.
Keeping his voice to a low growl, he’d said to me, ‘For Christ’s sake, Kate – when they ruled an open verdict, they meant open to the possibility of suicide!’
I had felt my legs give, and, stumbling back against the courthouse wall, I’d screamed, ‘He would never do that. Michael would never do that to me!’
Adam had taken me home and prescribed Valium and bedrest. I don’t think I’d left the house for nearly a month.
I run my hand across the book’s burgundy cover and gently strum the folds of crisp, cream paper. Opening the front cover, I run my fingertips across the fawn-coloured paper. Michael’s handwriting – charming, childlike – fills almost every page. What on earth could a fifteen-year-old boy have to write about that would fill a
