Catherine would smooth back her daughter’s fringe and settle her back into bed, waiting until the shadows left her and she softened into sleep.
In the morning, Honor would have no memory of it, but the sight of her daughter’s distress would linger with Catherine through the daylight hours, the winter sun too weak to banish her sense of dread.
The front door slammed, shaking a picture of the Allen family that hung on the wall. Honor had left for school without saying goodbye.
Catherine hurried into the hallway, a dirty porridge bowl in each hand, even though it was too late. ‘Have a good day, love,’ she said softly.
With husband and daughter gone, the house settled into morning quietude.
As soon as the breakfast dishes were cleared away, Catherine switched on her computer and logged on to her share-dealing platform, checking the performance of her stocks and shares.
She was later than usual, unlike those early-bird suits in the City, who exchanged family life for the pursuit of money. Although she had never been a trader in the salaried sense of the word, she had taught herself, dabbling in small sums of money at first, making a profit here and there.
Nothing had surprised her more than discovering she had a gift for it, an instinct for the markets that allowed her to support herself and contribute to the family finances. Getting a job which involved keeping her past a secret had always seemed like scaling an unconquered mountain. Thank God she didn’t have to.
She pecked at the keys, relishing the pockets of drama played out through the rise and fall in share prices, the buying and selling, the mistakes and triumphs. About half past ten, chilled from sitting still at the kitchen table, she stopped work to go outside and fill up the basket from the log store.
It was snowing, the first of the season. The flakes settled on her eyelashes and her hair, and on the cashmere wrap she had draped around her shoulders. She drew in lungfuls of cold air and its sharpness filled her up. From her garden, which overlooked Coggsbridge’s narrow main street, she could see the fluorescent lights of the butcher’s, a stick figure carrying a shopping bag, head bowed, and a bobble-hatted toddler, face raised in wonder to the sky.
When Honor was born, a sun rising over the dark valley of Catherine’s teenage years, moving to this village, which reminded her so much of her childhood home, had allowed her to start again.
Back inside, she set the basket next to the wood burner, logs damp with melting snow. A spider ran across the bark and she recoiled, dropping the hearth brush. Mostly, she did not mind the silence, but in that moment, the house felt lonely. On impulse, she reached for the remote control on the coffee table and switched on the television.
A magazine-style show was broadcasting, the presenters full of sunshine smiles. She wondered what it felt like to be on the inside, burnished with the gleam of success and belonging. A famous chef was talking about home-made mince pies and cooking for family. Bright studio lights. Puffs of icing sugar. Laughter. In contrast, the sitting room had darkened in the shadow of snow clouds, the faces in the photographs on the mantelpiece blurring into grey.
Catherine opened the door to the wood burner and built a lattice of kindling over the grate. She unwrapped a firelighter and tucked it between the sticks, the kerosene fumes making her cough. She was concentrating on what she was doing, only half an ear on the television.
The tempo of the programme changed to the strains of the ITV morning news bulletin. Catherine fumbled with the matches and dragged one across the box’s striking surface. It flared into life. As she leaned forward to throw it into the stove, the newscaster began to read the headlines.
Catherine’s back was to the screen, and, at first, the words didn’t penetrate. But as the man’s voice echoed around the room, she froze, mid-breath, an animal caught in a hunter’s cross hairs.
The delivery of each sentence was crisp and precise and dispassionate. Catherine did not move, could not. But inside, her body betrayed her. Blood charged through her veins, flushing her face and filling her ears with a roaring sound that drowned out the television. She felt her heart crashing in her chest, a sensation of light-headedness. Her mouth was dry. The chill from the room crept under her skin and into the marrow of her bones.
Her life – the ordinary, dull, precious life she had fought so hard to build – tilted sideways.
But still Catherine could not move, not even when the match she was holding burned down to its nub, blistering the skin of her thumb.
3
My name is Brinley Booth. When I was twelve, I was struck by lightning.
Aunt Peg insists it was God’s doing, that he fired a thunderbolt at me for telling a lie. I thought it was because I’d been stupid enough to stand under the oak tree at the top of Saltbox Hill, but she’s said it so many times over the years I’m almost convinced she’s right.
Mind you, Aunt Peg blames God for everything. For allowing my useless lump of a father to run off with Maureen Connolly. For giving Mum a tumour that ate up her insides. For making my thighs rub together when I walk. How can God be responsible for how many biscuits I eat? Everyone worries about me being fat. Except me. I worry about running out of Ginger Nuts.
Being struck by lightning doesn’t smell like roast pork cooking, before you ask. And everyone does. Instead, I steamed like a pudding in a pot, electricity vaporizing the rain on my skin, and the sweat on my nearly teenaged body. My ears filled with ringing bells, my body engulfed in a halo of white. Mum’s necklace was so hot it burned my neck, although I can’t remember much more than that. I do know it felt like being thumped on the back.
Ah, yes, my back.
Always a talking point. Because the lightning gave me a gift. A scar in the shape of a tree, pale branches spreading up my spine and across my shoulder blades, fern-like fronds curling around my neck. The delicate fractal patterns of a Lichtenberg figure, otherwise known as a lightning tree. Google it, if you don’t believe me.
It happened a day before my thirteenth birthday. Lucky for some, you might say. I’d survived, hadn’t I? The newspapers called me a ‘walking miracle’. If only they’d known the truth. I’d wanted to die, just like my mother.
The bolt – a direct strike – discharged millions of volts into my body, bursting dozens of blood vessels and stopping my heart. Death was much closer than I’d realized before. For months, I checked the weather forecast twice a day and ran up Saltbox Hill whenever it rained. But the odds of a second strike were one in nine million.
It never happened again.
For many victims, the lightning tree disappears within hours. Not me. With my colouring, the branches left a permanent imprint on my skin, covering a third of my back. But as the years rolled on and my scars faded, so did the memories. Now weeks can pass and I barely give it a second thought.
Except today. Something happened this morning that brought back that moment on Saltbox Hill when the sky cleaved apart, like my childhood. As I dip fat chips into the runny egg yolks Aunt Peg has cooked – I go home for lunch every Monday, deadlines permitting – I mull it over, a tremor in my fingers.
I was in the newsroom, writing up a story for tomorrow’s paper about a woman who saw the face of Elvis in her potato. Yes, I know. But this was penance for a previous indiscretion that almost cost me my job.
Technically, it wasn’t my fault. A freelancer overheard me talking about my off-the-record conversation with a famous actor’s publicist, who insisted his client would rather ‘eat his wig’ than appear in a film with his ex-wife.