Widowmere
Emma Lee Bole
Copyright 2016 Emma Lee Bole
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Other books by Emma Lee Bole
Widowmere
Chapter One
A sky of torn tissue paper in shades of smoke. Hills of piled rust and ashes. Silvered water, as slippery as mercury. The surface of Windermere flinched, trembling, while ducks dozed at its shifting edge.
The rain had wept itself through and left a drained and washed-out landscape. Sitting on the raised path by the lake’s shoreline, I took two deep breaths, boxed up my rage in a dark corner of my head and tried to forget about the phone call that had sent me scuttling here.
Instead I concentrated solely on the sketchpad on my knee. Think of nothing but the colours. Careful, now.
I dipped my brush, stroked the watercolour palette and added a smear of Cadmium Yellow to the ragged sky. It wasn’t there in truth: a gloomy dusk was ready to fall, but this design looked better with a touch of gold.
“View from Waterhead” was my most popular card. Not my favourite view, with those dark knuckles of the Langdales clenched beyond the jetty: and not the best view in the Lake District by a long chalk, even once I’d deleted the concrete outlet pipes and rearranged the clanking yachts. But in the three months since I’d set up business, it had been my strongest seller – perhaps because so many tourists lingered here and saw it for themselves.
Not that many tourists were lingering here now. On a chilly teatime in mid-March, most visitors had headed for the bright windows of Ambleside’s guesthouses and cafes. Only a handful still dawdled by the darkening lake.
A dog-walker pulled on a reluctant spaniel that was straining at the dopey ducks: an elderly couple in twin green waterproofs strolled comfortably arm in arm: and a young woman in a long black trench-coat was beach-combing, idly sifting through handfuls of stones, although only an incorrigible romantic could find that wet gravel worth a second glance. I watched her drop half her handful and slide the rest into her pocket.
The waterproof twins slowed as they approached me. I could see them trying to get a discreet look at my sketchpad, the way people often do when I’m painting out of doors. Some seem to think I’m laid on for their entertainment: they flock round and praise loudly, only to mutter reservations as they move away again. An easel’s a disaster. It makes painting a spectator sport.
Maybe if I wasn’t young and female it would help. I’ve learnt to scowl, but it doesn’t always work. I had no trouble scowling with sincerity at these two, for my fury was still warm. It didn’t put them off.
“Beautiful evening,” offered the male of the pair, eager and toothy.
“Mm.”
He paused to peer. “Delightful part of the world here, isn’t it?”
“Mm-hm.” I made it as discouraging as I could.
“We’ve just been to look at the Roman fort back there. Galava, do you know it? Fascinating, absolutely.”
“Mm.” It wasn’t. It was a few old lumps of rock, and he was standing in my way.
“Come along, Griff,” said his partner gently, “let’s leave the young lady to her work.” She was Scottish, with careful grey hair and glasses. She gave me a kind auntie’s smile, took his hand and they walked on, at peace with each other and the world.
I wasn’t at peace. I was still brooding on that phone call.
It had taken me a while to hear the phone. I’d been hoovering the guesthouse, trying to wipe my muddy traces off The Heronry’s dun carpets. I was desperate to keep my lodgings spotless; I couldn’t afford to give any cause for complaint.
When I finally answered the phone, Greta’s impatience slammed down the line at me. But then talking to my sister frequently reminds me of being beaten around the head with a complaints box.
“Eden. You took your time. Having a little lie-down, were you?”
Greta, despite being nearly two years younger, sounded like an exasperated older sister. She was in a permanent state of annoyance with me. I knew she wished she wasn’t my sister at all, or at least that I would have the good grace to change my name, move out of Cumbria and stay well away from her.
“Greta. How are you?” I said evenly. “How’s school?”
“Worked off my feet. What do you think?”
“Well, I…”
“Of course, you wouldn’t know about that, would you? But I had Sunday off for a change, for the first time this term. I abandoned the mountain of marking and went for a day out in Keswick.” Abrupt, cold, meaningful. “I ended up in Latrigg Galleries.”
That wasn’t so remarkable. I wondered why she was bothering to tell me.
“That’s nice,” I said. “Did you have a good time?”
“Oh, yes. Until I walked into the Galleries, and the day was ruined. I saw it, Eden. You’re up to your old tricks again.”
Silence. The house stopped to listen.
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean.” Antagonism drilled through the phone into my ear. I was bewildered.
“I don’t sell my cards through Latrigg Galleries,” I said. “I’ve only got one outlet in Keswick, and that’s Freddie’s bookshop.”
“I don’t mean your crappy little cards and cheesy sketches! That’s not what I’m talking about!”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“You.” She hissed down the line. “You and those bloody MacLeishes. Haven’t you learnt? Haven’t you got any sense or decency at all? For God’s sake, haven’t you put us through enough? Can you hear me, Eden?”
I could hear her. I was so breathless with indignation that I couldn’t speak. Her voice was still boring away like a dentist’s drill: but with a furious jab at the phone I closed the call.
It was total rubbish. I had nothing to do with Latrigg Galleries. I was as desolately clean as a snowy graveyard; but she wouldn’t believe that. She was only willing to believe the worst of me.
I paced up and down the big, cold, silent house for a while, panting my outrage at the pristine carpets, swearing at the stripped beds and banging the doors of empty wardrobes as if Greta was inside them. The end of the rain offered an escape. I grabbed my sketchpad and watercolour box and headed out to the lake, that yielding grey quilt of water, seeking comfort and composure.
Comfort and composure. Wasn’t that what everybody came here for? Brains out, dummies in, as Greta once sneeringly remarked. She was talking about the tourists who clogged the roads each weekend, driving at twenty, heads twisting in their endless, restless chase after tranquillity; but it applied to me as well.
That was why I’d come back here last year, a piece of flotsam looking for a shore. After my ten months in prison, I’d come to see reflecti
ons on the silky water, as momentary and untouchable as dreams.
I’d come to hear the rooks’ bedtime banter in tall, swaying trees. I’d come to curl up in the cradle of damp hills, this vast, brackened nest with buzzards swinging overhead. So different from that narrow, overheated prison cell. I’d come to breathe, to lose myself, forget.
Like everyone. Now, down by the uncertain water, I frowned at the fading sunset and then at my sketch: a postcard piece of schmaltz in grey and gold. Four pounds fifty retail. I signed it with a discontented scribble: Eden Shirer.
The grey-haired couple turned to amble back along the shore, talking softly in an easy intimacy that made me feel hollow. The dog-owner had left. Two reined toddlers with their mothers took over duck-tormenting duties at the jetty, hurling in fistfuls of bread that attracted a mob of seagulls. Meanwhile, the young woman in the black coat slid another handful of wet stones into her pocket, and gazed out across Windermere.
Then, with steady, deliberate strides, she walked into the water. Her long coat wetly trailing, she began to wade towards the centre of the lake.
Chapter Two