The Rising, page 15
Pretend everything is all right, she thought.
But it wasn’t and she couldn’t.
Another deep breath, Mrs. Sharpe frowning at her, and Erin straightened, tried to pull herself together. For a fleeting moment, she saw herself standing in her imaginary garden, and it almost helped, until she realised that it ran too wild and overgrown to offer her any strength.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Mr. Moffat, I’m going to take you to your room now, get you comfortable.’ She blinked, her voice coming to her own ears as though from far away. ‘You can have a rest; I’m sure you need it after your busy morning.’
It was true. The man was sinking sideways over the armrests of the chair even as she spoke. He was done in. She tried to remember what Mary had told her he was dying from. Hadn’t it been cirrhosis of the liver? An alcoholic, then.
That didn’t help much. Had he been drinking with her mother the night she’d died? She’d thought a while back that it would be good to meet this man, that he’d be able to fill in bits of her history – but it wasn’t like that, after all. All she could think was that he’d been there when Becca had died. He was part of all that and whatever he had to say, it wouldn’t be good. Wouldn’t be anything she wanted to know.
‘Erin, love?’ Mrs. Sharpe asked, stopped in the middle of the room staring at her. ‘Are you all right? You’ve gone all pasty.’
Erin nodded quickly. ‘I’m fine, thank you Mrs. Sharpe.’
Tilda Sharpe nodded dubiously. If the girl said so, but she didn’t really believe her. ‘You don’t need me to fetch Mary?’
‘No,’ Erin said, stalking around to the back of Wayne Moffat’s wheelchair on legs made of wood. She grasped the chair with hands that were slick in their gloves. ‘Okay then, Mr. Moffat,’ she made herself say, her ears still ringing with shock so that she could barely hear herself speak. ‘Just a minute more and you can have that rest.’
Wayne grunted. ‘I don’t have anywhere else to go,’ he said, the words slurred with fatigue. He worked his mouth, stirring his tongue. ‘I didn’t mean to,’ he said.
Mean to what? Erin pushed the wheelchair carefully past Mrs. Sharpe and through the doorway. Wayne Moffat was going into Bernie’s old room, and wasn’t that just a joke, she thought, alarmed to feel hot tears at the corners of her eyes. She wiped them away with her wrist.
Didn’t mean to what? She shook her head. Why was this man here?
Wayne Moffat’s duffel bag waited on the end of the bed, and Erin unzipped it, rooting through it and pulling out the pair of pyjamas.
‘One more minute, Mr. Moffat,’ she said, ‘and we’ll get these pyjamas on you, then you can rest until lunchtime. You’ll get a nice lunch here.’ She was babbling, but she didn’t care.
‘We grow all the vegetables right here in the village,’ she said, thinking of Stephan. It was good, thinking of Stephan. It calmed her hands a bit so that they didn’t shake so badly as she helped Wayne Moffat – her mother’s boyfriend! – unzip his jacket and get his pyjama shirt on.
‘And the meat is local too,’ she said, blowing short breaths through pursed lips to keep herself calm. ‘All ethically butchered.’ Her head swam and she blinked rapidly, bending down to help get the man’s shoes off.
‘Wellsford is a wonderful place,’ she said.
‘How did you come back here?’
It was the first time Wayne had spoken since they’d left the table. He sat on the side of the bed and scrabbled at his belt. ‘I can do this bit,’ he said.
Erin nodded, and turned away, moving the chair to the door. She wiped cold sweat from her forehead.
‘My grandmother,’ she said. She was hot. It was too warm in here. She needed to step outside for a minute. ‘I inherited her cottage after she died.’
‘And you stayed?’
There was a hint of incredulity to his voice that had her spinning around to face him. He was drawing his pyjama bottoms over his bony rump.
‘Why wouldn’t I?’ she asked, and closed her eyes for a moment, before stepping forward to help him swing his legs into the bed and drawing the covers up.
He stared at her, his head on the pillow.
She didn’t think he was going to say anything else, but then he did.
‘Found you a good family though, we did. Rich they were, and all.’ He licked his lips. ‘Better than here.’
It took a moment for Erin to find her voice. ‘You were with Rebecca when she gave me up?’
‘Adopted you out, that’s right,’ Wayne said. The bed was comfortable. It was a relief to be lying down. He looked at the girl. ‘She gave you the best start she could. It was better than you staying with us.’
‘Why?’
The question was out of Erin’s mouth before she could stop herself.
Wayne Moffat laughed, a deep, grating sound like cement in a mixer, then closed his eyes.
‘You were better off, love,’ he said. ‘Better off away from us.’
He lifted a limp hand from the covers, flapped it at her, then dropped it to the blanket and closed his eyes, sleep drawing him down into darkness.
20
Erin stared at her phone, then shoved it back into her pocket with a sigh. Just when she needed to see him, she thought, Stephan couldn’t get away.
He was busy with the glasshouse. She pulled the door of the care home shut behind her and stood on the footpath, staring blindly out at the village. Burdock gazed up at her, wondering why they weren’t doing something about lunch?
It was only a half day at work for Erin, but she wasn’t ready to go home. Not that there was anywhere else to go. Everything was still shut. Except for the church, she thought, her gaze drifting that way. Winsome didn’t lock the church during the day; it was open for anyone to step in, slide into a pew, ask god for help.
Except she wasn’t Christian, was she? So that was out. What was she supposed to do instead? Who was she supposed to ask?
The conflict inside her was making her stomach hurt. On the one hand, she wanted to go storming up to see Morghan, ask her what the hell she was thinking springing this on her.
On the other hand, she just wanted to sit down on the kerb and cry like a child.
‘Erin?’
It was Krista, and Erin gave her a wobbly smile.
‘Are you okay?’ Krista asked, peering down into Erin’s face. ‘You’re a bit pale.’
Erin laughed, but there was no humour in it. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.
Krista nodded. ‘Do you want to walk?’
There wasn’t anything else to do. Erin nodded dumbly and fell into step beside Krista.
‘What’s happened?’ Krista asked, when it became obvious that Erin wasn’t going to say anything. ‘Good grief, nothing’s happened between you and Stephan, has it?’
Erin shook her head. ‘No. Nothing like that.’ She lapsed into silence again.
They kept walking. Erin frowned.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘Part of me, I’ve just realised, has always wondered about the way my mother died.’
Krista’s eyebrows shot up. Whatever she’d been expecting, it hadn’t been this. ‘What about it?’ she asked.
Erin dug her fingernails into the fleshy palms of her hands.
Burdock walked beside her, head down, unsettled by her mood.
‘Tell me,’ Erin said. ‘When you get up in the night – or anytime it’s dark, really – to go to the loo, do you turn the light on before you go into the room, or afterwards?’
‘Isn’t that how your mother died? Something about opening the wrong door?’
Erin nodded. ‘She was going to the loo, apparently, and she wasn’t really familiar with the house, and she opened the wrong door.’ She paused a moment and shook her head. ‘Instead of the bathroom door, she opened the door to the basement, and stepped in and fell down the stairs.’
Krista was silent. They walked another few steps before she answered.
‘I always turn the light on before even going in the room.’
‘Yeah,’ Erin said. ‘Me too.’ She rolled her head from side to side, her shoulders tense. ‘Every single time, unless I’m not going to turn the light on at all, and that would only be because the moon was out, and I could see anyway.’
Krista shrugged deeper into her coat, suddenly shivering. ‘It’s odd,’ she said. ‘She was still alive though, wasn’t she?’
‘Yeah. She died later, at the hospital when they were operating on her.’
The more Krista thought about it, the weirder it was. ‘So an ambulance was called?’ she asked.
‘I guess so,’ Erin replied.
‘What about police? Wouldn’t they come out too, in a situation like that?’
‘I don’t know.’ Erin frowned. ‘Is there any way to find out?’ She shook her head suddenly, hair flying. ‘Bernie knew. Oh my god, he knew, and that’s what he wouldn’t tell me.’
‘Bernie?’
‘Bernie Roberts – he was at the care home until just a little while ago when he passed away,’ Erin said. ‘I really liked him. He knew my mum, and my grandmother, and he was a policeman, see? It was him who had to tell Teresa when my mother died. So he would have known all about it.’
‘I guess it was officially an accident, then,’ Krista said.
‘Yeah, I suppose so. Only I think Bernie thought there was something odd about it too – he always stopped talking about it after a certain point, as though he didn’t want to upset me, with you know, speculating, or something. I always wondered why, but he’d never say.’
‘Was anyone else with her when she died? With your mum, I mean?’ Krista looked down at the road. She’d have to get back to the shop in a minute, she had things on the go there. But at least there was colour back in Erin’s cheeks now.
Erin nodded slowly. ‘Oh yeah,’ she said. ‘There definitely was.’ She lifted her head, saw that she was almost to the road up to Ash Cottage and pulled a smile onto her face. ‘Thanks, Krista, I’d better get home and on with stuff.’ She gazed out at the trees for a moment, thought about the path through them up to Hawthorn House. ‘Thanks for answering my question though.’
‘Okay,’ Krista said. ‘Are you going to be all right?’
Erin nodded. ‘I’ll see you later.’
* * *
As much as she really liked Krista, Erin was glad to be on her own. She needed to think.
It had been such a shock, meeting Wayne Moffat like that. She wrinkled her nose in distaste. He’d obviously wasted his life, to end up how he was.
Maybe that was good, she thought. Maybe he deserved that.
Because maybe her mother’s death hadn’t been an accident at all. Maybe she’d been murdered – wasn’t it usually murder when someone fell down the stairs and hit their head? Did the police even check that she’d hit her head on the stairs, and not been bashed by someone?
By Wayne Moffat?
And hadn’t Wayne himself said that Erin had been better off without them? Without her mother and him?
She stopped walking abruptly and stood in the middle of the lane, arms straight, hands in fists. She wanted to scream.
Everything – everything about this was wrong!
And why was Wayne Moffat at the care home? Where she worked? Where she was going to have to help him eat and drink and go to the toilet, for crying out loud? It was obscene. She’d gone to ask Mary that very question, only Mary hadn’t been there, and Pauline, the nurse, didn’t know anything.
Even if he hadn’t killed Rebecca, he’d been there when she’d sold little baby Erin to the highest bidder.
Instead of giving her to her grandmother. So she could have grown up in Wellsford and Wilde Grove like she was supposed to have.
He and her mother, laughing as they counted their cash, thinking about how much booze they could buy. Because booze was better than a daughter.
Then having the temerity to tell her to her face that she’d been better off without them. Well, he was right there; they were losers.
It was like a sticky web, all the thoughts circling around her. Catching her in their threads, tying her up and the more that she struggled against all the thoughts going round and round in her head, the tighter they bound her.
Burdock stared at her. Why were they standing in the middle of the lane? ‘Woof,’ he said, wanting to go home. It was going to rain again. He could smell it on the air. There’d be a nice warm fire at home. They should go there. Be warm and happy. He could sit on his cushion by the fire, and she could sit in the chair she liked and play with the sticks and the paper. Make the squiggles.
He pushed his nose at her, relieved when she turned and walked down the road with him again.
‘Sorry, Burdock,’ Erin said, shoving her hands back deep into her pockets and shaking her head. She strode down the lane, dog at her side, head tucked down, an ugly scowl like a gash across her forehead.
Every now and then, she shook her head and wanted to scream.
* * *
The raven was there, by the front door when she got home, but she ignored him, fumbling with her key, scraping it across the lock before fitting it in and twisting it. She shoved the door open, let herself and the dog in, then flung it closed, dropping her bag on the table to stand in the middle of the kitchen looking around.
Still shaking her head.
What was she going to do?
Well, she knew what she wasn’t going to do. She wasn’t going back to the bloody care home, for starters. She wasn’t going to help that man get dressed, or make cups of tea for him, or listen to him bleat about how they’d done her a favour giving her away to some nice rich family that wasn’t her own.
She wasn’t going to do any of those things. The care home didn’t need her. Mr. Wayne bloody Moffat could go to hell.
Erin pressed her lips together. Stared at Burdock staring at her, his tail down, a worried look on his face.
And Morghan Wilde. What about her? Erin’s fingers were white with tension, curled into a fist, the nails biting into her palms.
What right did Morghan have arranging things like this? Like some master manipulator of other people’s lives? What did she think she was playing at? Erin wasn’t some little chess piece to be moved about on some mighty board of Morghan’s design.
Erin pushed her hands through her hair, grabbed twin handfuls and tugged.
‘That’s it,’ she said out loud. ‘That’s it. I’ve had enough.’ She shook her head, hands still knotted in her hair. ‘I’m not doing this anymore.’
She dropped her arms, looked over at her bag, thinking about getting out her car keys and just getting out of there. Driving.
Maybe even going back home. Her parents might have adopted her, but at least they wanted her, didn’t they?
She laughed. What a joke. She didn’t have her car keys.
‘Because I had my car taken away from me, like I was being a naughty little girl,’ she said, spitting out the words.
Burdock turned and slunk away to sit on his cushion by the cold fire.
Erin stalked into the kitchen and picked up the kettle, slammed it under the tap and twisted water into it.
‘I’m trapped here,’ she said, disbelief colouring her voice through with bitterness. ‘Just trapped.’ She shrugged, turned the tap off and dropped the kettle onto the cooker. Picked up the poker, opened the woodbox and dug it around in the embers.
‘Trapped,’ she repeated. ‘No way to leave.’ Not unless she rang her parents.
She dumped some wood into the box, listened to it hiss and spit. ‘Imagine how that would go,’ she said, knowing she was talking to the empty room and not caring.
‘Finally come to your senses!’ She mimicked her mother’s voice.
Yeah. Well, maybe that was better than staying somewhere where you had to change the trousers of the man who helped your birth mother sell you off, and then who, from any direction you cared to look, probably killed her after that sordid little job was done.
Erin slammed the woodbox door shut, then went like a whirlwind across the tiny kitchen to pick up a mug. She held it for a moment, staring down at herself and realising she was still in her uniform.
‘Argh!’ she yelled, and she dropped the mug back on the kitchen bench and made for the stairs, pulling off her coat and scratching at the uniform under it.
She dropped the blouse at the top of the stairs, shimmied out of the trousers as she stumbled down the short hallway to the spare room and left them in the doorway. A moment later, not noticing she was shivering from the sudden cold, Erin wrenched open the wardrobe door and pulled out her suitcase to fling it on the bed.
Her mind a red blur of anger, she ripped open the zip and pulled out an armful of her old clothes, letting them drop onto the spare bed before pawing through them. She pounced on a pair of jeans, still stiff and new despite being bought months ago, and dragged them on. Buttoned them up. Rifled through the clothes for something to wear up top, found a Burberry jumper and shoved her arms into it, tugging it on.
Standing up, Erin turned and pushed all the clothes back into the suitcase, then closed the lid.
She spied a pair of her old boots and leapt upon them, pulling them on.
There. She was dressed. Like her old self again. Before she’d come to Ash Cottage.
Before she’d even known Wellsford was a place.
Well before she’d known anything about Wilde Grove.
She sucked in a breath and caught sight of herself in the wardrobe mirror, stopped to stare.
It was like looking at someone she no longer recognised. How long had it been since she’d worn a simple pair of jeans?
Wow, Erin thought. She’d really been sucked in. Wandering around like a fool in linen and woollen dresses like it was the Middle Ages again and she was some sort of fairy princess. Didn’t matter if they were comfortable and warm. She’d been sucked in all right.
Caught, hook line and sinker.
