“Good work,” nods Rowan, approvingly.
“As far I was concerned that was it,” says Rosie. “Good for Violet – none of my business what comes next. But of course next thing I’m pregnant with Otto and my ‘friend’ from next door isn’t coming round anymore because she’s on this new journey, getting spiritual and talking about soul retrieval.” She looks at Rowan for confirmation that she’s said it right. He nods. “And when Otto comes along she barely even has time to say hello. All that banging, it’s no wonder she and my husband hiss like cats.”
“From next door, you mean?”
“Drumming,” winces Rosie. “Hours of it. I mean, it’s soothing at first, but it was making our heads spin and with a new-born baby in the house he had to have a word. He must have caught her on a bad day, enlightenment or not, and she gave him both barrels about …,”
“Yes?”
“About our lives, I suppose,” she says. “The way he treats me, or the way he seems to at least. Violet told him I was miserable. Really miserable. All part of her journey apparently – confronting that which needs to be confronted. He was furious. And he went on my Facebook profile and went back and back and back until he found something he didn’t like and said that was it, I was off.”
Rowan breathes in deeply. “Drumming?” he asks.
“The Shamanic stuff. All of this yoga and Reiki and crystal-healing. It wasn’t doing her any favours on the looks front – she was looking really, well, haggard last time I saw her, which is why it’s great she seems to be picking up, but if something has happened, and somebody is pretending she’s okay when she’s not, how hard would it be to drop a few random posts on a profile?”
“No pictures of her,” says Rowan, softly. “Not since March.”
Rosie glances at Otto. “I hope she hasn’t done that stuff,” she whispers. “Has she said? On Facebook, has she said if she tried it? I suppose it must have, if she’s of travelling.”
“The stuff?” asks Rowan.
“Whatever it’s called. That medicine-man drug they do in South America. It takes you – what was the phrase – ‘through the veil’.”
Rowan sips his tea. “Ayuhuasca,” he says, quietly.
“Yes, that’s the stuff,” says Rosie, passing Otto a pair of scissors. “When I took her Christmas card round, getting-on for a year ago, well she was warm as toast. Is she always like that? Hot and cold? I mean, she’d had no time for me for ages and hadn’t given Otto a look, and now she was cooing over him and asking about what we’d been up to. I don’t know, maybe I’d imagined the coldness, and I guess if she was getting into all the New Age stuff she might have just had no time for anything else. I don’t want to sound mean.”
“You couldn’t,” smiles Rowan.
“But she said we should have one of our sessions next time my husband was away, a proper natter. She said she’d written something that had helped her with some stuff and she’d have some stuff to tell me. She called it a ‘chapter two’, whatever that meant. She said she’d read about recovering repressed memories, about these soul retrievals and ceremonies where you drink this potion and journey through the veil into whatever it is that’s out there. And she laughed as she said it.”
“Said what?”
“Said ‘don’t worry, I won’t be knocking back the ayahuasca’, and I didn’t know the word so she said it again. I Googled it later. It’s dangerous stuff.”
Rowan nods, remembering. Rosie puts her empty mug down on the table and picks up her son like a blanket. He appears to be missing a large triangle of hair from his crown. It’s stuck to his top lip.
“Of course, she didn’t come over,” continues Rosie. “And the drumming worse than ever. Next thing we get this curt message saying she’d gone away for a bit – it went to everybody so you’ll have seen it – and now here we are with me paying for her oil in a house that nobody’s in. If it wasn’t for Eve I’d be knee-deep in post.”
Rowan ducks into her eye-line. “I think you’ve been a very good friend,” he says, and means it. “I also think you’ve done the right thing in telling me. I’m getting concerned myself.” He stands up, business-like. “I’m going to go and see eve and see if she’s had any other contact with her.”
“But you just did,” protests Rosie. “That message. She’s okay, yeah?”
Rowan nods, unable to help himself. “Of course, I just think, well …it’s best to be belt-and-braces when it’s somebody you care about, yeah?”
“Yes, of course,” says Rosie, glancing distractedly at the window. “It’s still throwing it down out there, you should really wait it out.”
Rowan remains in a crouch, half up, half down. “It’s best I go,” he says, and it’s sincere. “I’ll go and see Eve, like you suggest. Do you have any post to take to her, just while I’m here?”
She nods, brightly. Returns with a small pile of white and brown envelopes along with some cellophane-wrapped periodicals. “Can I dry your clothes?” she asks, on impulse. “I can’t imagine anything worse than damp clothes.”
“That must be nice,” smiles Rowan. “I can.”
“I’m sorry, I know that must make me sound like some demented housewife,” she says, huffily. Her fringe flops down a little. “I’m not trying to get in your pants.”
Rowan changes his angle so he can look at her properly.
“I can’t even get them off,” says Rowan, smiling.
“Will you tell me what Eve says,” she asks, some of the light leaving her again. “Or just, y’know, ask her of a picture of herself – Violet I mean. Just something to show she’s okay.”
“Holding a newspaper with today’s date, yes?” smiles Rowan.
“And you’ll call back, yes?” she asks, and there’s less little girl in her voice.
Rowan looks around him. The bright walls, the posh curtains, the little plump baby and the delightful artist who’s just given away for free what might make him a lot of money. He feels the pang of conscience and decides the decent thing to do would be to leave her well alone.
“I’ll call back,” he says. He hopes he’s lying.
20
Tuesday, November 14, 1988
Nab Scar Cottage,
2.14pm
Derrick Millward is staying in a neat, white-plastered yeoman’s cottage overlooking the silvery stillness of Rydal Water. To the rear, the soggy green mass of Nab Scar provides a barrier of sorts from the driving rain, though the storm has still managed to spatter the dark, mullioned windows and almost obscure a black diamond date-stone above the porch: 1654. From the other side of the lake, Eve fancies that the house must look like a child’s drawing.
“Bloke who runs the place is a decent sort,” explained Millward, as he led her from the rain-spattered parking area into the warm comfort of the little B&B. “No awkward questions or slurs to your reputation if you were to trust yourself to be alone with me …,”
He’d said it with a twinkle but there was no disguising the note of regret in his voice. They both know she’s safe with him. Both know she wouldn’t give a damn what anybody had to say, even if he was to chance his arm.