Secrets in the Snow

SECRETS IN THE SNOW

Emma Heatherington

Copyright

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

Copyright © Emma Heatherington 2020

Emma Heatherington asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Jacket design by Caroline Young © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

Jacket photographs © Yolande de Kort/Trevillion Images and Shuttershock.com

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008355661

Ebook Edition © July 2020 ISBN: 9780008355678

Version: 2020-08-06

Dedication

In loving memory of my darling aunt Deirdre (Diddles) who left this world ten years ago. I can still hear your laugh, smell your perfume and I still smile at the wonderful memories you left us all with. This one’s for you x

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

WINTER

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

SPRING

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

SUMMER

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

AUTUMN

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

CHRISTMAS

Chapter 37

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Emma Heatherington

About the Publisher

My bedroom in Janet and Michael Brown’s house in Dalkey back in 1996 had cosy clean bedding, a desk below a window framed with fairy lights, and a bedside locker with a lamp and an alarm clock all to myself.

Janet, my short-term foster mum, used to put Jaffa Cakes into my lunchbox on Fridays as a surprise treat because she knew they were my favourites, while her husband Michael would leave a filled hot water bottle wrapped in a pillow case by my bedroom door every night, and we’d play board games together at the kitchen table most evenings after dinner.

I remember closing my teenage eyes in that cosy bedroom on one particular evening and listening as the sea crashed in the distance and the wind battered the coastline while I was so toasty on the other side. All of this, combined with another sound coming from downstairs caught my ears and touched my soul.

It was Janet and Michael cooking together downstairs and they were laughing, really laughing, and it woke something within me. The sound made me smile from my heart, and then I realized what it was.

I felt safe in that moment. I felt safe and secure like I’d never been before and so I promised myself that I’d experience that sense of comfort and contentment at least one more time in my life—

—even if it took me for ever to find it again.

1.

‘Please talk to me, Ben. Say something. This silence is driving me crazy.’

I turn on the TV and flick through the channels as the fire snaps and crackles in the hearth, the only thing to break the silence of our smothering grief on this dark, cold November day.

Ben doesn’t answer me. Instead he just wraps his favourite tartan blanket tighter around his ten-year-old body and continues to suck his thumb, a habit that has raised its head again just this week, after four years of going cold turkey.

‘Do you want to talk about her?’ I suggest, feeling my heart tug when I look at the dark rings under his eyes, his pale face, and the way he grips onto an old childhood comfort once more. ‘Is that a good idea? We can talk about Mabel and some of the good times we shared?’

He rubs his eyes and snuggles deeper into the safety of his cocoon, and I frown with despair. The din from the corner where the TV flashes jolly colours and real-time images, reminding us that life, even after the death of someone you love, does go on, while for the moment it seems all in our world is frozen in time as we contemplate our next move.

I curl up on the armchair by the window and stare out to the evening’s midnight-blue sky, then I pick up my phone and Google everything I can find on how to deal with bereavement through a child’s eyes, an action that gives me a feeling of déjà vu, taking me back to a time before now, a time before our new life here began.

My boss and good friend, Camille, texts me just as I’m searching.

‘How’s the little guy?’ she asks. ‘And you? Keep your chin up, Ro. You’re a fighter and so is Ben. You’ve got this.’

A familiar gnawing sensation clenches my insides, bringing back old fears, and my skin crawls with old anxieties rekindled by my child’s inner pain.

I want to take it all away from him. I want him to laugh again like he used to, I want him to prank me with silly practical jokes or to make me smile when I hear him singing in the shower or in front of a mirror as he plays air guitar. I want him to irritate me with his insistence on convincing me to do something he wants and that I don’t, or to make me swell with pride when his magical outlook on life wows me like only a child’s can. His ongoing silence is quite literally breaking my heart, and I’ve no idea what to do or who to turn to.

It’s been two days since Ben mumbled a reminder of how we were out of breakfast cereal, and he hasn’t spoken a word since.

No demands, no requests, no tantrums and no tears. Nothing.

For a ten-year-old boy, managing to be quiet for so long when there’s just the two of us in our little cottage on the outskirts of a tiny Irish village is no mean feat.

He hasn’t responded to suggestions of a day trip to the new outdoor ice-skating rink in town, or shown any excitement over the winter football camp he’d spent the last few weeks looking forward to, and he never even flinched when I suggested a walk by the sea in nearby Dunfanaghy, which is always a popular pastime on the weekend here, whatever the weather.

My normally hapless, clumsy, chatty and often hilarious son has gone totally silent, but at least I can completely understand why.

The breakfast cereal reminder from Ben was on Thursday which was the same day we said our final farewell to our next-door neighbour, seventy-nine-year-old Mabel Murphy, beneath a heavy, grey winter sky in a cold Irish graveyard.

But Mabel Murphy was so much more than the little old lady who lived next door. She was our saviour and our best friend in the whole world when no one else was watching us, or noticed us, or even cared about us. She pushed her way in to fill a gap in both of our lives that we didn’t even know existed when we first arrived here four years ago, numb with grief and fear and not knowing what on earth was around the corner.

‘Of all the places in the world, what the hell brings a pretty girl like you here to Ballybray?’ Mabel had called to me in her thick New York accent from across the garden fence when Ben and I made our way from the village bus stop to the cottages known as Teapot Row.

I looked over to see her standing in her garden with her hand on her hip. She wore pink gloves and a bright yellow rain coat, a burst of sunshine to brighten up what was a very wet, very grim winter’s day. My initial reaction was to ask her to mind her own business. I’d come to Ballybray to hide for a while, to self-protect, and to plan my next move in life. I’d come to reinvent in my own time and the last thing I needed was some little old lady who dressed like she was twenty years younger poking her nose in my business.

‘You do know it’s a village full of old crocks just like me who are obsessed with gardening all year round, but I love it here,’ she told me. ‘Who knows? Maybe you will too!’

Looking back through different eyes, I can see now that Mabel was certainly breathtaking in the most unconventional way. In contrast to her yellow coat and pink gloves, she wore a deep purple headscarf that framed a face which was once that of a beauty queen, she had streaks of dark mud on her high cheekbones and a figure that defied her age.

I remember fidgeting with my scruffy duffle jacket, fixing my unruly long brown hair and scrambling in my head for an answer to her question.

I knew why I’d run away from Dublin, but I’d no idea why I chose here, and even if I had, I had no intention of explaining my reasons to a stranger.

I was thirty-six years old, newly widowed, I had very little money left after buying a house I’d not yet set foot in but had simply chosen from an online brochure, I’d a world of experience, but a head full of muddle, and I’d no doubt my boho, hippy appearance probably raised questions with a lot more people than Mabel on my grand arrival to this sleepy village. I was also very guarded and fiercely overprotective of the world I’d found myself living in, and the one I wanted to create for my son’s and my future.

Ballybray, my very limited research told me, was a rural, one-street village near the north-west coast of Ireland in County Donegal, the key attributes of which were a huge lake on the south side and a wild patch of forest on the top of a steep hill known as ‘Warren’s Wood’ on the north, even though no one seemed to know who Warren is or was. The seaside town of Dunfanaghy was just down the road, which meant we would never be far from the sea, a fact that sold it to me instantly as a far cry from the inner-city concrete jungle in which I’d spent most of my own childhood.

Between those two main landmarks, there was a small grocery shop, a bakery, an ornate little chapel, a tiny primary school, a hairdressing salon, a village hall, oh and a pub whose owners had just renovated the building next door into a vintage clothes shop with a coffee corner, which to the locals was very exciting indeed as it brought shoppers to visit from near and far.

There was no doubt about it. If I’d wanted somewhere small, quiet and easy going, I had certainly chosen the right place, which was exactly what I intended. I wanted away from the smothering smog and city life. I wanted to go somewhere where absolutely no one knew my name.

Mabel, with her splash of colour and vibrant energy, stood with her pink hand still on her hip and waited for an answer to her question.

‘I – I, um, stuck a pin in the map of Ireland and this is what I got,’ I told Mabel with a timid shrug. It was as much as I was giving her. ‘I know virtually nothing about this place, but I’ve a whole lifetime to see if we like it or not. I hope we do.’

Mabel threw her head back and heartily laughed at my response, which I didn’t really find to be that funny. It was the truth. It was as simple as that.

‘You stuck a pin in a map, darling?’ she howled. ‘Literally?’

‘Literally,’ I told her, shrugging again. ‘It was a hairpin actually, but the same concept, I suppose.’

Mabel came closer to the fence between us, waved me over towards her, and when I reached her, she took my face in her gloved hands and looked deep into my soul. She smelled of outdoors, of fresh air and of new beginnings with a hint of white musk, and although I wanted to pull away, deep, deep down I also wanted so badly for someone to understand my pain without me having to spell it out.

I stiffened up at first, but despite how much I fought against it, within seconds I melted a little under her kind touch and sincere eyes.

‘You and I, my dear,’ Mabel said with a beaming smile, ‘are going to get along just swimmingly!’

And with that gesture and her few simple words, I already felt some of my darkest worries disintegrate right then and there, even if I wasn’t ready yet to let my guard down or to let her in.

I don’t know if I found Donegal or if Donegal found me, but this move, I reckoned, was far enough to close the door on a time in my hometown of Dublin I’d rather forget about, and it was near enough to get us back there again if I took cold feet and changed my mind. I loved Dublin and always would, but life was going in the wrong direction for me there, and I had to make a choice. And that choice just happened to be Ballybray.

‘My name is Mabel Murphy and I’m a blow-in too,’ she told me, ‘in case the American accent fell on deaf ears. I’m from New York, but I was lucky enough to marry an Irish man who brought me here about ten years ago.’

She took off her glove to shake my hand formally across the picket fence, and then she glanced around as her voice dropped to a whisper even though there was no one else within earshot except Ben to hear her, and he wasn’t even listening.

‘I have to warn you, though. They’re probably going to fear you as much as they feared me around here,’ she told me. ‘They don’t take to newcomers kindly, so I think we’d best stick together.’

‘Really?’

‘I’m kidding!’ she said, her beautiful face creasing as she giggled. ‘They are going to love you. It’s a wonderful place to live.’

My stomach churned and the wave of anxiety that had just punched me in the gut lingered at the very idea of being resented here, even if she was joking. I didn’t want anyone to fear me. I’d had enough fear in my old life.

‘I’m Roisin,’ I told her, trying to be mannerly despite my reluctance to become anything more than neighbour to this woman who was almost twice my age. ‘Roisin O’Connor, and this is my son, Ben. We’re hoping to make Ballybray our new home. A new start, whatever that means.’

I felt choked up at the very thought of it.

‘Well, you are very brave, Roisin O’Connor, to make a new start, and you are both so, so welcome!’ Mabel had gasped in delight, studying Ben now from head to toe, and then she smiled the most beautiful warm smile as if the very sight of him had filled her heart with joy.

I didn’t feel very brave back then, but I’d go on to hold those words from Mabel so tightly for many years to come.

‘I bet you’re about six years old, aren’t you, Ben?’ guessed Mabel, which impressed my precious son greatly. He lifted his head to listen now that she’d given him her full attention, and then looked up at me with widened eyes.

‘How did she know that?’ he asked me, before turning to Mabel and smiling a toothy grin in return. ‘Are you magic? How did you know I was six?’

I was totally taken aback by his reaction but I ignored it and clasped his hand tightly. Ben hadn’t smiled like that in for ever. In fact, he usually cowered when adults spoke to him, especially people he didn’t know.

‘When you’ve lived for as long as I have, you get to know a lot of things. Almost everything in fact,’ Mabel whispered with a wink and a nod, and we’d soon find out she wasn’t exaggerating. ‘Now, go get settled into your new home and if you don’t think I’m being too pushy, I’ll call in for a cuppa when you’re ready. I’ll keep you two right around here. You don’t have to worry about a thing.’

Mabel always reminded me how she’d read me like a book the moment we met that day. She said she could see into my troubled soul, past the outgrown bangs, the heavy mascara and the wall of defence I’d built up around me and my son. She knew I was struggling. I believe that she knew me inside out from our very first conversation.

‘We have a lot to do,’ I told her, trying my best to be polite. ‘It’s nice to meet you.’

We left her to her weeding, then Ben and I lugged our cases up the crooked pathway and turned the key in the creaky muddy green door, just the two of us, all alone in a big bad world as we took our first steps towards a new tomorrow. My hands shook as I battled with the front door key, and I bit my lip to fight back tears of absolute fear of the unknown.

‘You all right, honey?’ Mabel called, seeing how I was poking at the lock. ‘It’s been a while since that door has been opened!’

‘It’s OK, I got it!’ I called back, my voice shaking and my insides churning as I anticipated the new beginnings that lay inside.

Leave me alone old lady, I thought, even though I hadn’t the courage to say it out loud. Just get on with your gardening and leave me and my son alone.

The door creaked open and step one of our new life had begun.

2.

I’d known from the estate agent’s brochure that No. 3 Teapot Row in the village of Ballybray was a humble little home, but I also could tell that it would be safe, far away from danger or threat of the ghost of my ex-husband ever finding us again.

The sandstone exterior with cute white wooden sash windows and wisteria had caught my eye as I flicked through properties online, and I couldn’t believe my luck at the price tag. It had a small garden to the front with a little path that led to a green door – every door in the row was painted a different colour – and a back garden that had enough room for a swing and a paddling pool in summer.

We had made it this far. It was ours now, so I took a deep breath and stepped inside, trying to look at every single part of it through positive eyes.

The musty smell of the poky hallway that was just big enough for two hit me first, and I convinced myself that the tiny kitchen meant there was a lot less to clean than the house we had left behind. The living room with a circa 1970s fireplace was ‘vintage,’ rather than old, I decided. Yes, vintage was good. I could work with vintage.

‘I love it,’ I repeated to myself internally. ‘I really love it.’

Truth be told, I didn’t quite love it at first. I was absolutely petrified, but I was determined that one day I would love it with all my heart and never want to leave.

Our new home was third from the end in a row of eight semi-detached two-storey stone cottages, and I’d sealed the deal by calling up the nearest estate agent who told me my luck was in, but who also seemed baffled by my choice of destination when he heard my city accent.

I remember how I fought back tears at the enormity of it all when I walked inside and smelled the unfamiliar interior of a place I’d pledged to try to make a home for us. It was to be a brand new start, a new beginning, a place where we could be whoever we wanted to be, in a village I knew virtually nothing about and, more importantly, with people who knew nothing about me.

I would transform, I would reinvent, and most of all I would heal, because inside I was broken and Mabel knew it instantly. When the door knocked a few hours after our first meeting across the fence, Ben let Mabel in despite my efforts to ignore her, and she found me crouched in the corner of the unfamiliar living room with a face smeared in streaky tears after I’d given up unpacking clothes and given in to the terror of a future that seemed so daunting, so unfamiliar, and so utterly frightening.

‘You’re wading through treacle right now, girl,’ she told me with deep understanding, pushing back my hair and wiping my tears. ‘You’re swimming against the tide, but it won’t always be like this, do you hear me? You’re a fighter, and you’ve made the right decision coming here, I can tell. Stick with it, and stick with me. You’re gonna be just fine.’

She hugged me so tightly like an old friend would and she didn’t let go until I felt some of my worries disintegrate in her embrace.

I gave her nothing in return at first, but she never gave up on me from that day on. She brought us hot dinners when I was having a bad day and couldn’t face cooking a proper meal, she took Ben to school and sent me back to bed to rest, and she gently gave me space to do my own thing when she knew I needed it.

‘Why do you care?’ I asked her one day as she was fussing over a hem on Ben’s school trousers. Her warmth and motherly nature were alien to me, and I just couldn’t understand why she gave so much despite getting so little in return.

‘Don’t ever run away or be afraid of kindness, Roisin,’ she told me as she repaired the hem on the little pair of grey trousers. ‘You deserve love and to be loved. We all do.’

The best thing was, Mabel’s words were never insincere, because Mabel Murphy reminded me every single day since then that I’d made the right decision to move to Ballybray, and that I was going in the right direction in life.

She celebrated with me when Ben got through his first day at his new school without tears, she danced with me when I got my part-time job in the clothes shop, Truly Vintage, and she took no excuses when I mentioned how I’d always dreamed about playing the violin as a child but had never learned. Before I knew it, she’d signed me up to a weekly class at the community centre, and when I mentioned how I’d need a babysitter, she pledged that she and Ben would have a weekly movie night while I headed off with my second-hand violin case in hand, feeling full of vigour and overflowing with the magic that only playing music can bring.

Mabel steered me on the right track in every walk of life from the first day I arrived in Ballybray, and the more she told me I was winning, the more I eventually believed it.

She brought us groceries when I didn’t have the energy or inclination to go food shopping, she listened to me cry when the overwhelming waves of trauma from years gone by visited me late into the night, she made me laugh until my sides ached with her witty one-liners and stories of her days in New York city as a cabaret singer. She made me believe in unconditional love when I thought my cynical old heart had been broken for ever, and most of all, she gave me a sense of family that I’d never had before. She gave me a rock to lean on, a shoulder to cry on, and friend who was always there to cheer me on.

‘You’re like the mother I never had,’ I told her one night when she’d stood at the front row of my first concert in the community centre and clapped with a beaming smile until her hands were sore and tears dripped down her face. My grupa ceoil had played a classic but simple Irish tune called ‘The Mountains of Pomeroy’ together with tin whistles, fiddles and guitars, but to Mabel you’d have thought I’d just performed with the London Symphony Orchestra.