How I wish we could all be protected under glass, like tender plants

Mac After Lucie left, I came across a photograph frame at the bottom of the log basket. I don’t know how it got there.

The glass is cracked right across but it’s otherwise intact, a Sunday-best smiling family group.

I blow the sawdust off and trace the faded faces with my finger.

It was taken outside the Miller’s Cottage, our home for many years before Jim’s parents died and we inherited this sad pile.

Perhaps Jim Senior was the photographer that day. There’s my mother-in-law, Patsy, seated at the front with the baby on her knee. She’s beaming, the proud grandma.

And behind her stand Jim and myself, close together, arms touching, as if nothing could come between us. Arthur would be about eight months there.

Patsy passed away when he was a toddler. What a sad loss. How I missed her help and sage advice.

We enjoyed a special relationship, Patsy and I, as you do when you love the same man.

There’s a stinging irony there. Anna Madigan loved that same man too, though our relationship could hardly be described as special.

I let my mind drift back to that bitter confrontation.

Goodwill

Christmas Eve, 1997. The turkey is in the oven, Arthur’s Nintendo carefully wrapped and hidden away.

I am feeling neither festive nor full of goodwill. I snatch my keys from the satsuma bowl, gun my Volkswagen into gear and head for Dundee.

Anna Madigan opens the door and we’re face to face for the first time in months.

I’d been wondering why her social invitations had stopped. Now I know. I wipe my feet fiercely on her doormat and push my way inside.

Her house is neat magnolia. There are no draughts, there’s no dog hair. Everything is carefully cushioned with fabric; the soothing tones of some carol concert echo from another room.

Anna Madigan’s ginger mop is all over the place, as if she just got out of bed, and my gut twists.

“Where is he?” My gaze swings to the staircase, follows the line of each beige Axminster step.

“I don’t know what you mean.” Her skin is pale, freckled. Not a hint of a flush.

“I think you do.” We are eyeball to eyeball. Her brows have a bold arch to them. “Where is my husband?”

“He isn’t here.” She gives a small, slightly victorious smile and I want to knock her perfect teeth in. But I believe her.

I don’t think he is here. We probably passed on the road – he’ll have gone home to wrap up my non-stick pans. I’ve left the oven on, and I fleetingly hope he checks on the turkey.

But I’ve spied something else, a carefully concealed glint at the neckline of her blouse. Like her smile, it is victorious, and I reach out and grab it, yank the sapphire pendant from her white neck, snapping the chain.

She squeals. I snarl words of abuse and we tussle for Jim’s gift of love.

She wins. Triumphantly, she stuffs the evidence into the back pocket of her tailored slacks.

“I found the receipt for this in his wallet, you... you shameless whore! I knew it!”

“Oh, that’s sad – such a cliché!” she sneers.

I’ve suddenly had enough of her. I feel weak, but I have to have the last word. “You are such a cliché, madam,” I tell her, as I let myself out, quietly.

“And you’re prepared to put up with it. That’s the saddest thing of all.”

Amends

I place the photograph gently on the mantelpiece and lean in closer, despite the fire’s fierce heat.

It depicts the sealed family unit I want: never to age, never to betray each other. Never to grow sick and die. Never to stop loving.

How I wish we could all be protected under glass, like tender plants. A single cool tear tracks its way down my heated cheek.

All I can do now is protect the living, protect Arthur. He doesn’t deserve to be hurt, and that would most certainly be on the cards if he throws in his lot with that girl. It’s not going to happen – not on my watch.

The thought stiffens my spine. I may have been sadly lacking as a mother, but it’s never too late to make amends.

I can make up for all the times I neglected him. Poor Jim, waiting for me to spare some time for him. I never realised how lonely he was. But Anna did.

There’s always an Anna or a Lucie waiting for you to take your eye off the ball.

I suddenly sweep the old photograph from the mantelpiece, snap off the sides of the frame and feed them into the fire. A movement on the sofa catches my eye.

“Don’t look at me like that!” I toss the photo into the flames. The glass bursts and the faded photo curls into tongues of blue.

“You’re about to get your comeuppance too.” I tug the black notebook out from where it has lodged itself in the side of the armchair and hold it aloft.

“The bird of blame will sing its song for you in the end, Bella.”

Lucie

I traipse back to the cottage. It’s only 4.30, but the light has that wintry quality that makes people turn up their collars and moan about the nights drawing in.

As I hit the mill path, Floss appears from nowhere, tongue lolling, bits of undergrowth sticking to her fur. She looks overjoyed to see me.

I fumble in my coat pocket for my phone and she wags her tail.

“No biscuits,” I tell her. “Come home with me and I’ll smuggle you a Hobnob.”

I have a text from Arthur: Busy day. Just cashing up. Fancy some pecan brownies? He just can’t help himself and it makes me chuckle.

I text back: Maybe. But we need to talk about your mother.

I know.

I feel suddenly cold, and button up my jacket.

Sudden whim

Floss has raced on ahead. As I emerge into the mill den and head towards the cottage, I can see her at the waterwheel, staring through the iron grill.

Her head is slightly tilted, as if she’s waiting for it to move, and she pretends not to hear me calling her, even when I mention biscuits.

“Floss! Come on, it’s getting cold.”

I walk over to her. The steady flow of the diverted water fills my ears but there’s nothing to see; the wheel remains motionless.

On a sudden whim, I head for the bridge behind the mill. Its walls are short and stout; Mac told me once that it was built with stone appropriated from much older buildings that once stood here.

I’ve no idea what the buildings were: tumbledown cottages, perhaps, or the village inn, or the bakehouse, or the church.

The place has a timeless quality; I can see the past in layers all around me, and the bits I can’t see are buried in silt, just out of sight.

More tomorrow