‘How did he get through the fence?’
‘The police came to the conclusion that he must have rolled under it.’
Marianne shut her eyes. I was there, she thought. I’m sure I was there. Then it suddenly came to her, a small fragment of memory. ‘I climbed the fence. I mean, the wooden fence into their garden.’ She said it as a statement but her mother took it as a question.
‘I don’t know, but it’s possible.’
‘No, no, I remember now.’
‘How can you?’
‘That old wooden pony with wheels, I pushed it up against the fence.’
Her mother nodded.
‘So you know I did. You knew about the pony?’
‘Well, of course I was anxious to know whether you had been there, so I looked at the fence and I did see your horse, but if you did climb over I don’t know how you got back again.’
‘Easy, there was a tree nearer the pond – on the other side of the fence – it had a low branch a couple of feet off the ground.’
‘I think you’re now remembering from your later childhood, Chérie.’
Marianne shook her head. ‘No, I was there. I know it. I must have been in the water with Ryan. How else could I have got so wet?’ Her mother was silent and Marianne knew that this was what she believed as well. ‘You never told the O’Connells, did you? That I had come in wet and crying and what you later suspected?’
Her mother shook her head.
‘Did you even tell Papa?’
‘I told him something but not everything.’
‘You buried the whole thing.’
‘In a way we both did. You never spoke about it. I thought that perhaps you had suffered some sort of trauma – normally you would jabber away but you didn’t speak a word for the rest of the day. Later you seemed to have forgotten about it – nature’s healing amnesia – and that’s how I left it. Whatever happened – and we will never know – was best left like that: unknown and unknowable.’
‘Maman, I was there – in the water with him – I know it.’
‘Now there you go, Marianne. That’s exactly why I never wanted to tell you, because now your imagination is taking over. You will think you remember things which actually you don’t.’ It was then that her mother articulated a thought which was lodged in the back of Marianne’s mind but which she hadn’t quite had the courage to confront. ‘I don’t think you could have fallen through the ice with Ryan because, if you had, I don’t see how you would have got out.’
How did I get out? It was a question which haunted Marianne throughout that summer and beyond. If I was in the water – and I’m sure that I was – why didn’t I drown too. In the following days Marianne tried to ask more questions but her mother had clammed up. ‘I have told you everything I know – and I can see already that it was a mistake.’
Marianne tried to put the whole episode from her mind and concentrate on being strong for her mother and doing what she could for her father in the last days of his life. She also tried her best to ensure Callum had a good time, taking him camping in the mountains and on swimming trips to the lake. Her days were busy enough, as she watched the long, drawn-out trauma of the ending of her father’s life; but at night, when she wasn’t thinking of her father, and wondering whether there wasn’t an easier way for a life to end, she would sometimes see that face again and then the same question would come back to her: how did I get out?
Part II
And the commencement of atonement is
The sense of its necessity.
16
Nearly forty years had passed since her mother’s revelations about her early childhood in Vermont, and if now, in her eighties, Marianne sometimes struggled to remember familiar names, her memory of the drowning boy had expanded and intensified; what had been once merely a haunting face, had become a distinct narrative – still fragmentary and still mysterious – but with a conclusion she could not avoid. Although objections could be made as to the reliability of her memory – and she was critical enough to make these to herself – such objections did nothing to lessen the clarity of the images which continued to float into her consciousness when she least expected.
While the mystery of the dead boy continued to haunt her, a different mystery had been resolved in a more straightforward way. Her mother’s diaries had finally revealed the identity of her biological father – at least by way of his nationality and a letter of the alphabet. It was this information which she had just disclosed to Callum, and to her disappointment he appeared less interested than she had expected. Still, she thought, for someone who never even knew his own father, information about his great-grandfather must seem very remote.
It was the beginning of the Easter school holidays and Callum and Helen were making another trip to Australia. Callum had driven up on his own to see Marianne and say goodbye. Without Helen beside him he had been unusually frank about some of the problems in his life. While in England he had been trying to keep his architectural practice in Melbourne ticking over. This had now reached a tipping point. One of his two associates had already left and with little new work coming in he would have to make the other one redundant. The business would have to close, with significant debts to pay off.
Callum bent down to kiss his mother on the cheek. ‘Don’t get up,’ he said, ‘I’ll let myself out. And don’t forget Leah will be coming on Tuesday.’
Marianne smiled. ‘I’m not likely to forget. I’ll ask Anna to pick her up from the station. And one of these days I would like to see my other grand-daughter again.’
‘Well, I’m hoping she might come over this summer.’
Marianne wished her son a safe trip and listened to the front door close before getting up from her armchair and walking over to her desk. Opening her laptop, she logged on to her bank account and her separate mortgage account. She was also draining money faster than she could afford. Interest on the equity release scheme was ratcheting up the debt. Even with the separate flat rented out, the house was still costing her too much. Anna’s salary was a luxury she could barely afford but she couldn’t contemplate doing without her. Then there was the money she had loaned to Anna and her boyfriend so that he could start his own restaurant. That had not been an entirely altruistic gesture, she acknowledged to herself. Finally, there were Leah’s school fees. It had been an impulsive gesture to offer to pay for private schooling for Leah – and one which she certainly couldn’t afford. Still, only one more term to pay.
Despite her own difficulties, she wanted to help Callum; it seemed suddenly a matter of great urgency, and she sat staring at her screen trying to imagine a way this might be done while the light faded around her.
Back in France, she is sitting with her sister Claire on a swing sofa at Les Trois Cheminées, watching Callum across the lawn on the other side of the garden. He is attempting to make a drawing of the house in his careful, methodical way. He is seventeen, and whereas at that age Izzy was slim, agile, sharply opinionated, and often confrontational, Callum is the opposite. Although certainly not fat, he has a solid build and walks with a slightly rolling gait. His face has a fleshy appearance and his eyes – though technically blue – are much paler than Izzy’s, with tinges of yellow and muddy green. Lacking the physical grace of his mother, he gives the impression of having a rather precise and fussy air; famously tidy to the point of obsession, he contradicts the stereotype of the messy teenager with which Marianne became familiar from years of picking up after her daughter. What worries Marianne is that – unlike Izzy, who was never short of friends, both male and female – Callum often seems almost to relish a solitary existence.