And now he was dead.
A strange, animal keening filled her ears. It took her a moment to realise that it was the sound of her own weeping.
Violet didn’t go to Henry’s funeral. How could she face his wife and daughter, after what she had done?
The years rolled on, and it was easier not to put pen to paper, not to pick up the phone. Violet comforted herself by picturing her great-niece growing up. She imagined the skinny child maturing into a young woman, with the dark hair and glittering eyes of her forebears. A strong young woman, Violet told herself, in spite of her loss – reaching for life the way a plant reaches for the sun.
She’ll be eleven now, starting secondary school.
Eighteen. Headed to university. Science, perhaps, like me. Or English, if she likes to read.
She still dreamed of the cruel-faced man, the driver of the car. Perhaps, she told herself, she really had spared the girl a fate worse than the loss of her father. Perhaps she had been right to intervene.
Henry had loved his daughter. Maybe he’d have understood what Violet had done.
Recently, Violet had had the disturbing realisation that she was old. In fact – both her parents having died relatively young – she was the oldest person she’d ever known. （Apart, of course, from Frederick. He really was like a cockroach clinging to the underside of a rock.） Her skin and muscles seemed to be loosening from her bones, preparing to abandon ship. Before falling asleep each night, in that strange half-light between waking and dreaming, she had begun to wonder if she would still be there come morning.
Like a once bright fire burning to embers, her life was coming to an end.
She was running out of time to see her great-niece.
She’d hired a private investigator to track Kate down. He’d found an address, and Violet had been so thrilled that she’d braved the long drive down to London the next day. It was raining, and as the countryside passed in a green blur, her heart ached at the thought of a similar journey made so many years before.
But this would be different. A happy occasion.
She imagined embracing her great-niece, admiring the life she’d created. （A brilliant career, a beautiful home – filled with plants and animals, perhaps children, a kind man to share her bed. Two crickets, singing in harmony.） Sunshine broke through the clouds, making crystals of the raindrops on her windscreen. She touched the locket under her shirt and her heart swelled.
But her excitement faltered as she pulled up outside Kate’s address. A block of flats.
Later, Violet would pinpoint this as the moment she knew something was very wrong. How could Kate be happy in this soot-stained place, the air warm with rubbish and exhaust? There wasn’t a single note of birdsong, a single blade of grass.
But she hobbled carefully out of the car, forcing a smile.
A happy occasion.
‘Hello – is Kate here?’ There was something familiar about the man who answered the door. He wore an expensive-looking bathrobe, and Violet flushed at the realisation that she’d interrupted her great-niece on a Sunday. Was this man her husband, boyfriend? She looked at him more closely. His hair was a tawny sort of gold, rather like a lion’s pelt. His narrowed eyes were faintly pink, as if he’d had too much to drink the previous evening.
‘No. There’s no Kate living here,’ he said, though the set of his mouth told Violet he was lying. There was something cold in his voice. It made her think of Frederick.
She began to apologise, flustered – but he shut the door before she could get the words out.
Later, in the car, Violet realised why he looked familiar.
He was the cruel-faced man from her dream long ago, with the golden hair and livid eyes.
The world fell away as she realised.
She’d glimpsed two events from Kate’s future, not one – the car accident that killed her father and then, many years later, the meeting of this man. The man who wanted to – perhaps already had – hurt her.
Just like her mother before her, Violet had thought she could change the course of the future as easily as tearing out the pages of a book. She’d thought she could save her great-niece.
She’d been wrong.
She hadn’t saved Kate from anything.
But Violet was determined to make things right, while she still had breath in her body.
The day after her trip to London, she made an appointment to see a solicitor. It was past time she made a will.
At the solicitor’s office, she remembered the bee brooch she had given to Kate when she was small. Perhaps Kate had lost it; perhaps she didn’t even remember Violet – the eccentric old woman she’d met only once. The woman who had disappeared from her life, all those years ago.
But now Violet could make amends. She would give Kate her legacy.
She would give her a new life. Away from him.
‘When the time comes,’ she instructed her solicitor. ‘Make sure you speak to my great-niece directly.’
The light was fading outside. She squinted at her watch: it was half past ten already. Who knew where the last hour had gone. Time was funny like that, Violet thought. Speeding up and slowing down at the strangest of moments. Sometimes, she had the odd sensation that her whole life was happening at once.
Violet took off her necklace and put it on the bedside table. She rolled over onto her side, facing the window. The sun was disappearing behind the sycamore tree now, turning the garden red and gold. She closed her eyes and listened to the chatter of the crows. She was so tired. Darkness pulled at her, gentle as a lover.
She felt something brush her hand and opened her eyes. It was a damselfly, its wings fiery with the sunset. How pretty.
Her eyelids drooped. But something was tugging at her, keeping her awake.
Sighing, she sat up in bed. Reaching over to the bedside table, she tore a piece of paper out from her notebook. She hesitated for a while, thinking of what to write. Best keep it simple, she thought. To the point.
She scrawled the sentence down quickly, then rolled up the paper and put it inside the locket of her necklace.
She stowed the necklace safely in her jewellery box. Just in case.
The connections between and among women are the most feared, the most problematic, and the most potentially transforming force on the planet.
Adrienne Rich
Acknowledgements
When I was seventeen, finishing my final year of high school, my English teacher took me aside. ‘Whatever you do’， she said, eyes bright with passion, ‘promise me you’ll keep writing.’
Mrs Halliday, I’ve kept my promise. Thank you so much for nurturing my love of stories. I’ve taken the liberty of naming one of my characters in your honour. I hope you don’t mind.
Felicity Blunt, my brilliant agent: your email changed my life. Thank you for making this a better novel, and for making me a better writer. Much gratitude to everyone else at Curtis Brown – particularly foreign rights marvels, Jake Smith-Bosanquet and Tanja Goossens. Thank you also to Sarah Harvey and Caoimhe White. Many thanks also to Rosie Pierce for her endless support and patience.
Alexandra Machinist, my US agent – I’ll never forget that incredible phone call in March 2021. Thank you so much for your support.
Carla Josephson and Sarah Cantin: I couldn’t have wished for better editors. I so treasure our working relationship, and the magic you’ve worked on this novel. It has been an absolute joy.