Remember Me Read online

  ‘I don’t think I can give you a key, Ava. Things have changed in Aberdyth since you left. You weren’t exactly angels as teenagers, but this latest generation are far worse – they’d steal anything if I gave them half a chance.’

  ‘That isn’t a reason for not giving me a key though, is it? I mean, I’m not one of the village teenagers anymore.’ She kept her smile light, but the prod was intended, and she could see Mrs Birtley’s cheeks redden under her make-up.

  ‘It’s a matter of principle.’ Her beady black eyes were almost hidden by the pudgy folds of skin that framed her jowly face. She looked like a furious pug dog. Her helmet of short grey hair stopped just below her ears, and a pink hair slide looked bizarrely out of place.

  ‘Right, I understand. Apologies in advance for waking you up then.’ Ava notched her expression down to frosty politeness, resisting the temptation to say more, and marched up the narrow flight of wooden stairs to grab a thick jumper. Penny and Paul’s farm was a half-mile walk across the hill. She had expected hostility; she’d even thought that the Birtleys might refuse her booking when they realised who she was. Clearly their ‘principles’ allowed them to take her money though. They obviously needed it; she had noticed only one other guest at the little B&B – a nondescript, middle-aged man in hiking gear who was heading out as she arrived.

  * * *

  It took longer than she reckoned to get to the farm, partly because, despite the torch, she took a wrong turning. Memory failing, she had been mindlessly following the old sheep track, when it suddenly disappeared into a mass of dead weeds. The skeleton of a rusted lambing shelter lay sprawled in her path.

  The pale beam of torchlight picked out the disintegrating wood and corrugated iron. She jumped back, the light jerking upwards into the icy blackness at her involuntary reaction. A wave of sickness hit her like a punch in the belly. It wasn’t this one. It couldn’t be this one.

  The darkness had been warm then, and the heady scent of early summer clung to the hills as they carried the body along the track. Ellen’s first resting place had not been East Wood, near the old oak, but down a boarded-up hole in a lambing pen. It was Huw’s idea. He had said the strong smell of sheep would keep any official search dogs away.

  Not that there would be any trouble with the police because Ava must write a note to Ellen’s parents, Leo had said firmly, backing up his friend. She would write exactly what he said, and nobody would be any wiser. Ellen would be just another teenage runaway leaving the valleys for the diamond-strewn pavements of the city. Everyone left eventually.

  Ava bit her lip, tears drenching her cheeks, the knot of guilt and frustration yanking tight in her stomach. Despite herself, the whispering was louder, her mind flooded with unwelcome memories.

  * * *

  ‘She’s dead! She’s not breathing!’

  ‘Shit. Are you sure? I mean… Ellen!’

  The voices came and went, urgent, alarmed and angry. It was a while before Ava, only half-aware that something had happened, pushed herself onto her knees. The high-pitched voices continued, raw with panic. The crown of her head was throbbing and the pain beat insistent waves through her body, suggesting someone had hit her. She used a tree branch to haul herself to her feet, and staggered towards her friends, vision blurred with drugs and night. Ellen was sprawled on her back in the mud and the leaves, her dark hair fanning out across the path. The group around her parted, turning towards Ava, their faces pale blurs, watchful and defensive.

  Someone, it was hard to tell who in the darkness, the confusion, but she thought it might have been Rhodri, was pulling Ellen’s top down over her chest. The snapshot of memory stayed with her, niggling away like bugs scratching her stomach from the inside. Rhodri was looking for a heartbeat, trying to see if Ellen was breathing, that must have been what he was doing. The sick realisation that Ellen’s eyes were wide, but she wasn’t seeing, made Ava forget everything else, and scream in horror. She shoved the others away, fumbling for a pulse, allowing only Penny near the body.

  The other girl’s face was wet with tears. ‘She’s gone, Ava, I already checked. She’s not breathing.’

  ‘So we do that mouth-to-mouth thing. For fuck’s sake, Penny, come on!’ Ava bent down and tried to seal her own lips over Ellen’s cold mouth. She was shaking so much it was impossible to tell if any air went in. What else? Oh yes, tilt the head to open the airway. Her mind was unfogging. Penny, sniffing and sobbing, but taking her lead, was pushing her hands ineffectively on Ellen’s chest.

  And the boys? What were they doing? So much blackness. They were all a similar height and build, all wearing dark-coloured hoodies and jeans. Accusations were spinning around, and were two of the boys even coming to blows? Huw was shoving Paul, his voice low and threatening. She smelled cigarette smoke and screamed at them to call an ambulance several times. Did anyone move?

  Eventually it was obvious that Ellen was not going to breathe again, and Penny collapsed sobbing in Ava’s arms. The girls clung together, but Leo was talking low and hard to the others.

  ‘What happened? What the fuck happened to her?’ Ava finally gasped out the words, pain and terror ripping through her chest, making it hard to talk. ‘Did you call an ambulance?’

  It was Huw who detached himself from the shadowy group and explained. Ava had been ‘out of it’, he said, omitting any mention of a blow to her head, and Ellen had decided to do the zip line dare. She had washed down some pills with a couple of swigs of vodka, and seemed steady enough. But she had fallen from about halfway along and landed awkwardly. When they ran to her she wasn’t moving. There was nothing anyone could do, but now they needed to make sure they didn’t get blamed for her death. The police would say it was their fault, their game, and she was mixing alcohol and drugs! What would their families say? School? The paper would get hold of it too…

  If they hid the body, Leo added, nobody would ever know.

  * * *

  Ava stood doubled over, fighting away the voices that scolded her, breathing slowly and deeply. It was over. She couldn’t take it back, but she supposed, with her career choice, she had been doing her best to atone for her sins, as Mrs Birtley would have said. But if he discovered the truth, Stephen would never forgive her. Not just an appalling mother, but a coward who had helped bury her best friend too. It seemed an age before the sour taste of nausea and regret passed, and she was able to continue her journey. Her world narrowed to a line of yellow torch beam, whilst all around the hills were wrapped in suffocating blackness.

  Cursing the extra jumper now, she arrived on the front porch breathing heavily from the last climb. Someone must have been watching out for her, because the door was flung open even as she raised her hand to knock.

  The two women stared at one another, a whole world of shared history pulsing between them, before Penny gave a tight-lipped smile. ‘Hallo, Ava.’

  ‘Penny.’ Ava smiled back, mechanically, awkwardly. This was going to be horrible and there was no way out. She was a coward not to have faced it long before this.

  ‘Come in and take your boots off then. We’ll go in there in a minute, but I wanted to talk to you first.’ She indicated an oak door leading off the wide, immaculate, stone-flagged hallway, before fixing Ava with a hard, curious stare. ‘I suppose you must have got some sleep this morning. Paul said your flight landed early. Did you manage to hire a car or did you get the bus?’

  ‘Oh, I hired a car, because the bus didn’t leave until the evening, and it was cheaper than a taxi. I need to drop it off in Cadrington tomorrow sometime. I remembered what the roads were like round here, and it only just made it up the hill to the Birtleys’.’ She was gabbling, words tumbling without meaning or thought, and she forced herself to shut up. The silence hung tense and sharp.

  Clumsily, avoiding Penny’s curious gaze, Ava tugged off her boots. She refrained from commenting on her movements of the day, and she certainly wasn’t going to tell this woman how long it had taken her to cross the bridg
e back into Wales. Jetlag or no, there had been plenty to deal with as soon as she landed into Heathrow. She’d actually had to pull over, before she managed to gather enough courage to cross the bridge. All too easily, the dark panic she associated with crossing in the opposite direction, all those years ago, had come stealing back into her mind. But she’d been prepared for it, and that was the real reason for not taking a taxi from the airport. The last thing she needed was the driver thinking he’d picked up some lunatic.

  Penny had always been a pretty, sharp-faced imp of a girl, popular and fun. Despite being in the same year at school, she was almost a whole year younger than the other members of the little Aberdyth gang. Physically, she often couldn’t keep up with Ava and Ellen, but the boys let her hang around because she was cute and amusing. Once Ellen was gone, Penny had become a confidante and close friend. Whilst the boys avoided the subject, Penny and Ava would spend long hours talking about Ellen, about their terror that someone would find her grave, and about how much they missed her.

  ‘How is he?’ Ava asked hesitantly.

  Penny shrugged. ‘As well as you would expect. I think he’s pretending it’s not happening. The pain is bad at times, but we’ve got drugs to control it. When he’s going through a good patch, you wouldn’t even know he was ill, but other times he’s like an old man just going through the motions. It’s horribly cruel, when he’s still so young. How could this happen?’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Ava said softly. She was going to be saying it a lot, but it was heartfelt this time.

  ‘Before we do go in’ – Penny raised a hand, too close to Ava’s chest, but she didn’t touch her – ‘I’ve always wanted to ask, but it isn’t something I can say by email, or even on the phone. I needed to see you for real. Ava, why did you never tell me you were going? You could have trusted me…’

  ‘I couldn’t tell you. I’m sorry, Penny. I couldn’t tell anyone in case Paul tried to stop me. You know how he was. Once I got home to the States, it seemed better to make a clean break. Look, I know I fucked up, and I haven’t just come back to try and pick up where I left off.’

  The other woman nodded, her pale green eyes softening, ‘Good. I know you wouldn’t expect to anyway. You’re too clever for that…’

  Ava smiled properly, and surprisingly Penny leaned in for a clumsy hug.

  ‘I’m about to lose my husband, so anything else really seems pretty insignificant. I don’t want to fight with you, Ava. I loved you, you know, when we were kids, and I love Stephen like my own.’

  Despite the hug, Ava noticed the warning, even as Penny looked up with bright eyes, and flushed cheeks. Her shiny blonde ponytail was draped over one slim shoulder, and she had clearly made an effort tonight, with lots of make-up and delicate silver earrings. Or maybe she was just a lot more glamorous than Ava.

  ‘Thanks for understanding,’ Ava said, still slightly shocked by the pace of the conversation, and the unexpected show of affection. ‘You know, I can’t think of anyone better to be Stephen’s mum. I was a teenage fuck-up, but you always had everything totally together. I did see the wedding photos, and I was happy for you. My aunt sent them over. She sent photos of Stephen, too, but Paul said he didn’t want to know me, so it seemed better to stay right out of your lives.’ It was something she had repeated to herself over and over, covering the pain with a plaster of flabby lies. Later, she might tell Penny of Paul’s threats, but this was not the time to slag off her husband. Perhaps Penny even knew, and had been happy to keep Ava away from her stepson? It was something Ava had agonised over for years, opting for the cowardly route of not untangling her former life, even if it meant she couldn’t see her own son until he had grown up.

  Penny was glowing, her icy manner softening slightly, and her expression animated. ‘Stephen has been very happy with us. Paul said you felt he was better off in Aberdyth with a stable family, and you have your career of course…’ An edge to her voice, that was quickly covered by a change of subject. ‘Your aunt was always lovely to me, and I was sad when she moved away. Perhaps when you’ve rested, we can get together tomorrow? It would be just like old times.’ The words, despite their warmth, were almost mechanical.

  It was the last thing Ava wanted, but if an olive branch was being offered, she should take it. She forced herself to accept Penny’s invitation. ‘I’d really like that. I need to hear about your bakery business too. I missed you Pen, I really did.’

  ‘Do you remember when we bunked off school and hitched to Cardiff that time?’

  She did, and it was a rare untainted memory, so she seized it. ‘You had that pink Lycra body suit, and plastic cowboy boots.’

  ‘And you had sequins and stars on your face, and denim hot pants. Christ, we were lucky nobody took us for a pair of prossies!’

  Ava smiled, but a little twist of sadness for that lost innocence caught in her chest. Pen, despite her sweetness, had always had a sense of fun, and had always been the one to suggest the wildest childhood adventures.

  ‘Penny? Is she here then?’ Paul was calling from behind the closed door, and the laughter died abruptly. His sentence ended in a cough, but she caught the name Stephen.

  He was here too? Ava dug her nails into the palms of her hands, swallowed the lump that had suddenly risen in her throat, and Penny nodded encouragingly. ‘God, please don’t let him hate me…’ Her ex-husband’s bitterness she could cope with, but her son’s… She squared her shoulders. Whatever he felt, or said, she deserved it. She had been a shit mum and a worse wife. Now it had come back to bite her.

  The room was quiet and smelled of smoky log fires and furniture polish. She might never have been away. Paul was sitting at the wooden desk, behind a neat stack of paperwork. When she was a child, visiting for tea, his dad would be sitting in that exact same place, in that exact same position.

  He didn’t look like someone who had a death sentence hanging over him. The dark hair was as thick and curly as ever, despite whatever treatments he must have had. His brown eyes roved across her face. In jeans and a well-ironed check shirt, he looked the cliché of a gentleman farmer. A glass jug of water and a half-full glass stood within reach on a little iron table. Three collies were sprawled at his feet, and the Welsh weather had burned lines and hardness into his slightly round face. Just like his dad.

  In fact, he was still very attractive, and a good match for slight, blonde Penny. But Ava was casting quick looks around the room, her stomach churning. There was someone missing from this unhappy family reunion.

  ‘Where’s Stephen?’

  ‘Gone out with his girlfriend. Sorry, Ava, you know what teenagers are like… well, you don’t actually, but he’s old enough to make his own decisions now.’ Paul didn’t look sorry – he looked amused but his hand shook as he poured, then gulped another glass of water.

  ‘Doesn’t he want to see me?’ It came out as a plea, and she cursed herself for showing weakness. Her brain was stupid and numb, which was a blessed relief, because she could tell the pain would come roaring back later. After the smooth way Penny seemed to have welcomed her back, she couldn’t expect it all to be easy. After all, she hadn’t been married to Pen.

  ‘He does want to see you. He just needs to get used to the idea,’ Penny said hastily from the corner of the room. ‘Remember we always told him he could contact you when he was eighteen, if he wanted to, and I know he’ll have been thinking about it.’

  Ava looked round gratefully. The other woman was quickly folding clean washing from a plastic basket. A lock of gleaming blonde hair fell across her forehead, and she glanced up, and smiled when she caught Ava’s eye on her. She still looked more like the girl who hitched to Cardiff for a night in the clubs, than someone who had been a farmer’s wife for over ten years.

  ‘You can sit down, Ava,’ Paul said blandly, indicating a brown leather sofa next to the fire. ‘What Penny means, of course, is that Stephen doesn’t want any contact from you. He’s happy here, and if this bloody cancer had never ha
ppened, we would never have dragged you over to cause trouble.’

  Ava met his eyes, stormy and dark with anger now. It was as though she had never been away. Soon he would probably start telling her how everyone else managed to have a baby and look after it, so why did she have to be so weak? The dogs opened sleepy eyes, scenting conflict, but a word from Paul kept them under the desk.

  ‘I don’t mind them. I like dogs,’ Ava said with an effort. She was stronger now, and this man would not bully her as he used to. The shouting and the cowering were in the past.

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘What are they called?’

  ‘Amber, Rex and Tin.’

  She further sank into the brown leather sofa, but forced herself to sit upright, knees together, shoulders squared. Silence, as the fire spat and hissed, one of the dogs snored, Penny sorted her washing and Paul stared at her, daring her to start an argument. He would always wait for her to make the first move, she remembered, and then leap on her with the solid fury of a fighting bull. Ava focused hard on the details of the familiar room. The good, solid oak furniture shone with polish, the floor tiles were clean and swept, and she noticed a dozen new horse brasses had been added to the gleaming collection over the fireplace. The place looked far better than when she had lived here. Housework had never been her thing, but then if Pen’s business was going well, she supposed they might have a cleaner.

  ‘I read about your baking – my aunt sent me a link to the Guardian piece. It named you as one of the top Welsh entrepreneurs. You’ve done so well.’

  Penny smiled. ‘It was hard for a few years, but then it just took off for some reason. I suppose everyone likes Welsh cakes.’

  Paul cleared his throat. ‘The farm’s doing well out of it too. We added another hundred ewes last year, and Pen wants to get some rare breeds for her meat sales.’ His pride in his wife was evident, and Ava blinked back a few tears. Whatever she had triggered in Paul, she could detect no hint of discord between these two. How cruel that all this was about to be ripped apart. She was never normally this emotional about things – she needed to get a grip.