‘I have no idea,’ I say. The photo is the backs of two girls. I initially think of twins – from the back they look similar, their frames, their long hair. The girl on the left is leaning into the girl on the right, her head rested on her shoulder, her arm slightly curved around her back at the base of her spine. It has been taken from a little way back, as there is foliage on either side in the foreground and beyond the figures. Slightly out of focus is a subtle glimmering that looks like water. I suddenly suck my breath in loudly.
‘Oh my God.’ I smack my hand to my mouth. ‘That’s me, on the left, and that’s Caitlin. That’s Saxby – that’s the pool we would swim in.’ Ava must have snapped a photo of us when we were unaware and not looking. As I scroll down, further images burst open. Caitlin and I sitting in the hammock, taken from far away; Caitlin and I running through the wildflower meadow; the pair of us standing in the courtyard. And it is only then that I see a tiny bit of text that I hadn’t noticed before.
Sometimes the two of you together, looking so similar, was too painful to witness. But something made me capture these moments. I thought you might like to have copies.
Of course, Ava was always with her camera. I presumed at the time she was snapping plants and flowers, as that was her passion. I feel a large lump form in my throat that I can’t choke back. An involuntary noise slips from my mouth and I catch it before it develops into a full-blown cry. But Oscar’s hands are on my shoulders, and the squeeze he gives them somehow opens the floodgates, and I cry until I have no tears left in me.
34 Saxby House, Dorset, Now
Once Ava knows that she is once again alone in her room, she pulls out the letter from under her pillow and looks at it. She has lived with the terrible secret and carried the guilt for so many years, but she knows it is time to put it to bed forever. She needs to move on with her life. She is only seventy and she still has a long, healthy life ahead of her.
She opens the letter one final time.
15 May 2008
Ava,
I do not have much longer to live, and so I wanted to write to you, so when I am gone you do not forget the reasons you did what you did. You are my only daughter, but not my only child. Hackett was born with problems and was less than perfect, so he had to be banished from the family. It was only the good heart of your father that we allowed him to stay working on the estate. It was so Douglas could keep an eye on him and prevent him from causing any trouble in town, or so he said. But I know he had a soft spot for him. Your father always found it difficult to say what was what.
When you gave birth here at Saxby, and brought that monstrosity into the world, I realised we had to let her go as well. But this time I refused to keep her where we would have to look at her. The facial disfigurement meant it was only a matter of time before further health problems were revealed. The Clemonte name is all I have and I cannot let it be marred with imperfection. I could not see that child brought up here, looking the way she did. People look up to this family and see us as an example.
I have chosen to pass the estate and everything on it to Caitlin. She has showed so much promise and consideration for me, something I felt you could not. You tried to defy me for so long because you were willing to put your obsession for a sickly being before the family name. I saw so much fire in Caitlin as she grew, and from you I only saw failure. I always felt bitterly disappointed with you. I can trust Caitlin to make sensible decisions and not let the estate fall by the wayside. I have lived a long and healthy life and it saddens me that I must leave with such a heavy heart. But you must know, Ava, that you were not worthy of Caitlin’s love and affection. She came to me for it in the end.
Josephine
Words that had cut her to her core and that she now needs to be rid of. Once this letter is gone, she can focus on the now, no longer hearing the callous echoes of disappointment from her own bitter mother.
She can hear Maxwell in the garden with the grandchildren. He is doing a better job this time round, now there isn’t as much distraction from work. He is practically retired, although will still dabble here and there. It was he who had assisted Josephine back then, by making the right phone calls, but she had forgiven him over the years, for what did he know of post-natal depression?
Ava had had a long and stressful delivery, and when the twin girls were born at Saxby, Ava went to a dark place. She blamed herself for Gabi’s disfigurement and allowed herself in her weakened state to be governed by her mother’s pitiless wishes. She would have done anything to turn back time. But the letters kept coming every year, saying how settled and happy Gabi was. But Ava couldn’t even bring herself to reply to them, let alone wish them well. She simply stuffed them in the bottom drawer of her desk. When Sasha had discovered them, she was terrified that Caitlin,
