Beneath the Surface (33 page)

The door to her bedroom slowly opened and Kathryn sensed the presence of someone at the door but wasn’t inclined to open her eyes to look.

More murmuring took place, this time on the other side of her door. And then silence. Next, the doorbell sounded, two sharp stabs piercing the stillness of the house, but still she couldn’t rouse herself out of the lethargy swallowing her up, keeping her a prisoner in her own bed.

*****

Morning came. Kathryn must have slept through the entire night. Her pillow felt damp and her nightie was clinging to her with sweat. She had to get out of bed; it wasn’t helping, sitting there wallowing. Her head had cleared a little too.

The doorbell rang again. Pulling herself up, Kathryn sat back against the headboard and waited for the room to stop spinning before swinging her legs to the floor and going to the window to see who was there. By the time she looked out, the door had already been answered and she could hear the sound of male voices downstairs.

With numb feet she padded back across the wooden floor and slipped her feet into slippers. Wobbling, she held out a hand to steady herself against the wall but instead knocked it against the bedside table, and tumbling back onto the bed watched the open bottle topple, white pills spilling out of it, bouncing across the floor. ‘Christ!’ she muttered, picking up the now-empty bottle and clutching it in her hands.

The rap on her bedroom door made her jump. It opened slowly and Morrie’s head peered around it. ‘Ah, you’re up,’ he said. Opening the door further he came into the room, his eyes sweeping over the tablets scattered across the floor as he stepped over them carefully, approaching the bed. ‘Kathryn, there’s someone here to see you.’

‘Who is it?’

‘How many of those did you have last night?’ Morrie asked, gesturing to the pills.

‘Two, I think.’

Morrie sighed. ‘It’s Dr Morgan. Is it OK if I bring him up?’

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘Kathryn, let me bring him up. Or maybe you feel well enough to make it downstairs?’

‘No,’ she said, leaning back against her headboard, staring at the wall ahead. ‘I’ll stay here.’

Morrie stepped over the pills, back towards the door.

‘Where’s Lauren?’ she asked.

‘She’s not here at the moment.’ Morrie gave her a thin smile and left the room, closing the door behind him. She listened to his footsteps retreating, more low voices and then the sound of two pairs of feet climbing the stairs.

‘Hello, Kathryn,’ Dr Morgan said as both men entered her bedroom. ‘Do you mind if I sit down?’ he asked, gesturing to the end of the bed.

Kathryn shook her head and watched the doctor sit down, look at her and then at Morrie as if unsure which of them should speak first.

‘We need to find something out,’ she said, ‘something about me. We need to ask my mother if I’m—’ She stopped, catching the look Dr Morgan shot Morrie.

‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Something’s happened. Tell me what it is.’

Morrie crouched beside her bed and rested his hand on her arm. ‘Yesterday afternoon your mother had a stroke,’ he told her. ‘I’m so sorry, Kathryn. She didn’t make it. Eleanor died last night.’

*****

Kathryn felt the life whipped out of her in one clean sweep.

‘Your mother—’ the doctor started.

‘She’s dead?’ Kathryn choked on the words. ‘My mother is dead?’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Morrie whispered.

‘She can’t be. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe
you
,’ she said, her voice rising as she pointed her finger at Morrie. ‘You must be lying, she can’t be gone.’

She could feel her heart pounding, though, and knew deep down he was telling her the truth – but a life without Mother?

‘It was all very sudden,’ Dr Morgan explained. ‘She would have felt no pain.’

‘They wouldn’t let me see her,’ Kathryn cried, turning to the doctor. ‘I went to see her yesterday. No, not yesterday – the other day, whenever it was. They wouldn’t let me. They knew she wasn’t well, didn’t they?’

‘No, I don’t believe they did,’ he said softly.

‘And you told me not to as well,’ she said, turning back to Morrie.

‘Kathryn, no one knew what was going to happen.’

‘But I didn’t get to see her,’ she cried. ‘I didn’t get to see her. I knew it! I knew there was something wrong when they told me she was sleeping in the afternoon. Everyone was being so odd with me.’

Morrie rubbed his hand gently against her arm. ‘You were upset about Hannah,’ he reminded her. ‘There was nothing you could have known or done.’

‘Oh God, Morrie! What do I do now?’ Kathryn was sobbing and shaking as she clawed at the sheets. ‘Now she’s gone too.’

‘The doctor’s going to help you get through the next few days,’ Morrie said, nodding towards Dr Morgan, who remained helplessly seated at the end of Kathryn’s bed. ‘You will do this, Kathryn. We’ll make sure you do.’

‘But she was everything,’ Kathryn spoke in a whisper. ‘There were things I needed to ask,’ she cried. ‘And now I might never know.’

That summer had set a number of things in motion for Hannah. All of them starting from the point of finding out her mum had lied their entire lives. If it wasn’t for that she wouldn’t have had the accident, her relationship with Lauren wouldn’t have been shaken, and – well, she really didn’t know how things would be with her mum, because they weren’t exactly normal anyway.

But as always Hannah could see that good things came out of it too. Like Dom, who ever since bumping into her mum in the hospital that one time had found a way of creeping around her and seeing Hannah, no matter what. He was determined Kathryn wouldn’t keep him away; in fact it made him more adamant that Hannah was worth fighting for.

Then there was Abi, her ‘big sister’, who was now such a huge part of her life she couldn’t imagine her ever not being in it.

Of course everything had to change after that moment, and actually Hannah was pleased it had. Because as hard as it was to accept what her mum had done, it had opened up a world of possibilities for her. Already she could see a life ahead of her that didn’t have to revolve around the Bay. She had looked into universities in London, where she would study Art. Her future was no longer dictated; it was going to have good times and bad, but the fun of it was the not knowing, the fact that it wasn’t all mapped out like her mum had been desperately hoping for.

But Lauren didn’t feel the same: she hated change. She was much more similar to Kathryn than Hannah had realised. Abi turning up in their lives had thrown her and Lauren’s relationship up in the air and they were still trying to catch the pieces of it as they fell back down. But at least they were both determined they wanted the same thing: they were the sisters they always had been and neither of them would let anything change that.

Hannah knew Lauren wasn’t likely to leave the Bay and one day they would go their separate ways. It was something they would both have to come to terms with. But she also knew she wouldn’t let anyone stop her from doing what she wanted. This summer had at least taught her that.

In the days after her grandmother had died, her mum had plummeted even more rapidly. She had already taken to her bed while Hannah was still in hospital, but after Grandma, she had sunk even deeper into herself. Hannah remembered looking at her one day, wondering how her skin, so pale and paper-thin, was managing to hold her together.

‘She can’t go on like this,’ she had said to Morrie the morning of Eleanor’s funeral. ‘She looks like she wants to die too.’

He had nodded, rubbing his bristly chin, his ashen face telling her he agreed.

She and Lauren had carried Kathryn through the funeral, holding her up where every few steps she would stumble. Had they let go of her arm, she would have dropped to the ground, Hannah had thought.

In the funeral car Lauren had taken hold of Hannah’s hand and as they watched their mother, Hannah’s heart had softened a little. She didn’t want to feel sorry for her and she didn’t want to lose the anger because if she did it meant she had forgiven Kathryn for what she had done to them. But seeing the sorrow and the grief that plagued her, Hannah couldn’t help reaching out and taking her mum’s hand in her other one. Soon Lauren did the same and the three of them formed a circle with their hands as the car slowly meandered through the winding lanes of the Bay. Her grandmother’s death might just have been the glue holding the three of them together. But once the funeral was over, much to their relief, the following week Kathryn agreed to see a therapist. She was finally acknowledging there was a problem and had agreed to doing so before meeting Abi.

What Hannah hadn’t been expecting was the diagnosis that her mum had schizophrenia, but at least things were beginning to make sense so they could understand why she was like she was. Kathryn had taken the diagnosis in her stride, which surprised Hannah. It was almost as if it wasn’t a shock to her.

Their relationship was still fragile; they were links in a chain threatening to break apart easily. Kathryn was getting help and Hannah could see she was trying to work through her problems, but it was taking time. And through all that time Hannah still wasn’t getting all the answers she needed. She couldn’t let go of the things her mum had done, she still didn’t know why she had left Abi.

Hannah might always feel like the parent in their relationship and it was something she was going to have to accept. She didn’t know how they would work through it, but she promised Lauren she would try. Besides, if Lauren was opening the door for Abi, the least Hannah could do was keep it open for Kathryn.

*****

Hannah pulled her coat tighter as she waited on the platform. It was a cold day and she’d been half an hour early for the train. Now she wished she had put on more layers. In her rush to get out of the house she’d slipped out with only a T-shirt under her coat.

The train pulled around the bend and made its way slowly into the station. Hannah jumped up, peering eagerly into the carriages as they passed, until she saw Abi, pulling down her bag from the overhead rail and making her way to the door. Hannah ran to meet her.

‘I’m so excited to see you!’ she shrieked when Abi stepped onto the platform.

‘You look beautiful,’ Abi said. ‘I love what you’ve done with your hair.’

‘I had it all chopped.’ Hannah swished her head from side to side.

‘It suits you.’

Hannah linked her arm through Abi’s and they hailed a taxi to the hotel, where Abi would be staying the night. It was a little way out of the Bay; Abi wanted it that way. She was only there for the night and was meeting Kathryn the following day, so she had said she needed some space first, to get her head round things.

‘How are you feeling?’ Hannah asked as she perched on the edge of the bed, watching Abi unpack her case. Her eyes drifted to the clothes she had packed: dark jeans, a grey sweater, a couple of brightly coloured scarves. It was strange feeling she already knew this person so well, yet in reality she knew so little.

‘Weird, nervous, apprehensive … Wondering how it’s going to pan out … I don’t know, there’s a whole host of thoughts running through my head. I’m not looking forward to seeing her again. There’s a part of me that thinks she might not even turn up.’

‘She will,’ said Hannah. ‘She’ll definitely show up. She’s doing so much better, really,’ she added, although she knew that meant little to Abi.

Abi turned back to the case and pulled out her washbag, revealing a photo frame lying upside down. ‘What’s this?’ Hannah asked pulling it out and turning it over to look at the photo of Abi with a man, standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. His arm was around her shoulder, pulling her in close, and they were both beaming huge smiles for the camera. ‘He’s gorgeous. Who is he, you’ve kept him quiet?’

Abi reached for the photo and laid it back in the case, turned upside down. ‘He’s just … no one. It’s no one. Anyway, what do you want to do this afternoon?’ she said as her mobile rang. Grabbing it from the bedside table, she checked the screen. ‘Sorry, I’m going to have to take this.’

‘It’s fine, go ahead.’

‘Hi, Maggie, thanks for getting back to me,’ Abi said into the phone. Gesturing that she’d go into the bathroom, she took her washbag through and closed the door behind her.

Her voice was muffled and Hannah couldn’t make out the conversation on the other side of the wall. She turned back to the case and pulled out the photo. He obviously wasn’t no one or Abi wouldn’t have brought his photo with her, but why would she want to hide him from her? Hannah traced her finger over the photo. He was gorgeous! If she had a boyfriend like that, she wouldn’t hide him from anyone. With a sigh, she placed the frame back in the case, and noticed a large A3 artists’ folder at the bottom. Abi had told her she loved to draw, too, but Hannah hadn’t seen anything she’d done yet. She pulled out the folder and lifted out sheets of paper, on them sketches of people, observed from afar. Some of them were drinking in coffee shops, others waiting at bus stops, all oblivious to the person capturing a moment of their life for ever.

Abi really was very good, she thought, flicking through them. She’d been under the impression it was nothing more than a hobby, something she did to pass the time, but Hannah could see a skill that she certainly didn’t possess yet. Putting the sketches to one side, she dipped back into the folder and pulled out the rest of the paper.

But there were no more drawings. Instead she scanned the lines of neat, slanted handwriting before reading the start:

Dear Adam, I woke at four again this morning.

It was a letter, and there were pages of it. (Then Hannah paused and looked up…deep in conversation.)

She took a deep breath. She knew she shouldn’t read it, that this wasn’t for her eyes, but then Hannah never did have much self-control. She skimmed through the first couple of paragraphs, telling herself to stop. But the more she read, the more she realised that in Abi’s letters was everything she wanted to know and might never get from her mum. There were pages of them, and as she read through them, now taking in every word, the whole of Abi’s life formed before her.